New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has summoned his lawmakers to an unscheduled caucus meeting as questions over his leadership intensify less than three months before a general election, according to Bloomberg.

“It is clear from various media reports and conversations there is increased speculation about my leadership,” Luxon said in an X post on Tuesday. “It is my firm belief that division and disunity are a major distraction only 90 days out from the election.”

Luxon said the issue needs to be “resolved quickly,” but didn’t say how or whether he would call another confidence vote in his leadership, a gambit that paid off in April. National continues to perform poorly in opinion polls and some of its members of parliament face losing their jobs in what is shaping as a knife-edge election in November.

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National Party’s caucus will meet at 9:30 am local time Wednesday in Wellington. Parliament is not sitting this week, meaning many MPs will need to return to the capital from their home towns.

The frontrunners to replace Luxon should he be forced to step aside are Attorney-General Chris Bishop, Education Minister Erica Stanford, Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Police Minister Mark Mitchell. Bishop on Tuesday said he has confidence in the prime minister and denied having talks with other MPs about a leadership change.

The New Zealand dollar was little changed just below 59 US cents at 5 pm in Wellington. The yield on benchmark 10-year government bonds was about two basis points higher in late afternoon trading, holding most of an earlier rise after US Treasury yields surged on Monday.

Weak economy

National and Luxon have lost support due to their inability to turn around a spluttering economy and ease cost-of-living pressures. The central bank is raising interest rates, with inflation running at more than 4 percent.

The prime minister, a former Air New Zealand chief executive, has also struggled to connect with the public and has been criticized for using corporate jargon, including calling voters “customers” and describing himself as CEO.

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National has around 30 percent support in the latest polls, suggesting it will again need to hold talks with current partners New Zealand First and the ACT Party to form a new coalition if the center-right grouping wins a majority in the Nov 7 vote.

On Tuesday, local media reported that some National lawmakers are agitating for Luxon to go. The New Zealand Herald quoted an unnamed MP saying “there’s going to be change” but that it’s unclear who will replace him, while The Post newspaper ran a live blog with the headline “National Party Coup Watch: Luxon Under Siege.”

While speculation about Luxon’s future was never entirely silenced by the successful confidence vote in April, the conjecture has stepped up in the past week after he had to apologize to small business owners — a key National Party constituency — for remarks that were seen as patronizing. He then surprised his caucus by announcing he wants to hold a referendum on the nation’s mixed-member proportional voting system if he is re-elected.

Luxon became National Party leader in November 2021 and initially ushered in a period of stability for the party, which had gone through four leaders in as many years. He led National to an election victory in 2023, when it won 38 percent of the vote.

A political protégé of former prime minister John Key, Luxon had long been tipped as a future leader, but his rise came sooner than expected — just a year after entering parliament.