WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Prime Minister John Key enters New Zealand's elections Saturday with an overwhelming popularity undimmed by an eleventh-hour scandal and with a historic chance to win an outright majority for his center-right party.

If opinion polls hold, Key's National Party will be the first party to secure a majority on its own since the country abolished a winner-take-all voting system in 1996 and replaced it with a proportional system.

Anything short of a majority, however, and Key will need to find political partners to form a stable government.

What's not in doubt is Key's personal popularity. After three years in power, polls show the former currency trader is far more popular than his main opponent, Labour party leader Phil Goff.