Ben Bell won the race to become Gore District Mayor on Thursday, edging out long-term incumbent Tracy Hicks by just eight votes.
Mr Bell, who celebrated his 23rd birthday last week and was just five when Mr Hicks first took the job, won 2371 votes to 2363.
"Woo hoo! I can't believe it! I'm so excited,'' Mr Bell told news outlet Stuff.
Mr Bell is a former Young Wellingtonian of the Year who moved to Gore during the pandemic and campaigned on his freshness.
"The incumbent hasn't done a bad job, but he's been there a long time,'' he said in August.
Mr Hicks, running for an eighth term, admitted his surprise to be in a tight race.
"It's certainly been an interesting election - quite different to anything I've had in the past," he told the Otago Daily Times.
"The choice people were faced with was really chalk and cheese, both in terms of demographic and local government experience."
The race was engulfed in scandal when Mr Hicks called a closed-doors meeting of council last week - just two days before voting ended - to allocate $NZ2 million ($A1.8 million) of council funds.
Local media speculated the funding may be directed to a Moonshine Museum being built in Gore which had suffered cost blowouts.
Gore is in New Zealand's Southland region, around 150km south of Queenstown, with a population of around 8000 people.
It claims to be the home of country music in New Zealand, and a global hub for trout fishing in the nearby Mataura River.
Mr Bell takes the mantle of New Zealand's youngest mayor from Campbell Barry, who was 28 when he was elected in Lower Hutt in 2019.
In a promising sign for Mr Bell, Mr Barry was elected for a second term during local government elections, held nationwide in September and October.
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