I've been feeling quite saddened and depressed since our Election Day last month with such a large slide of voters over to the right wing National Party on the back of the huge slump of support to the Labour Party. It had appeared that the National Party had managed to achieve 61 seats which (although this made for a slim majority) would have meant that the National Party would have had the ability to govern alone without even the need for coalition partners which would have made an historic first since the MMP Voting System had been introduced. Right wing commentators have lauding that one up, sickening eh.
But no more. The writing is on the wall. Today the Final Count has been released and we, the Green Party of Aotearoa, have achieved an extra seat, bringing our count of seats up to 14. Which is the same as last year. And our extra seat has been achieved at the expense of the National Party; they now have dropped from 61 seats to 60 which means they have lost that majority and now must have coalition partners in order to govern.
And the Green Party have polled the third highest!
There is a challenge here people. The Green Party is less than 15% behind Labour. Is it time that we became the main opposition party? Could we do that before the next election?
Final election result
National: 47.04% (60 seats)
Labour: 25.13% (32 seats)
Green: 10.70% (14 seats)
New Zealand First: 8.66% (11 seats)
Maori Party: 1.32% (2 seats)
Act Party: 0.69% (1 seat)
United Future: 0.22% (1 seat)
Conservative: 3.97% (0 seats)
Internet Mana: 1.42% (0 seats)
"Internet Mana"? What's *their* programme? or that of Act? NZ First I can guess.
ReplyDeleteWow Bill, I could write a book here. Mana is a party started by Hone Harawira after he left the Māori Party http://mana.net.nz/ Hone held the Tai Tokerau Māori Electorate seat. I like Hone btw, he is honest, direct and an activist for Māori and indigenous people and for children. This campaign he entered into a coalition with the Internet Party founded by Kim Dotcom who cannot stand himself because he is not a NZ citizen only has residency. Unfortunately this relationship proved toxic and Hone lost his Tai Tokerau seat. To get into Parliament here under the MMP system you must either win an electorate seat or get at least 5% of party vote. From the list above you can see that Internet Mana did not achieve that 5%. I am sad Hone lost, he is a good man, the kind we need to have in our Parliament I think. Act is a far-right party http://www.act.org.nz/ originally started by Roger Douglas of Rogernomics (like Reagonomics, thatcherism) fame, Did not achieve 5% threshold either but due to a deal done with National, (National tell Epsom voters to vote for Act in their electorate vote) they got the Epsom seat and thus have one member of Parliament who will enter into coalition with National as will Peter Dunne of United Future who also won one electorate. New Zealand First, I wonder what you did guess? Leader is a maverick NZ politician called Winston Peters who bounces back time and time again http://nzfirst.org.nz/
DeleteI am so happy at this result! I truly wish the US had such an arrangement where coalitions could be formed, the 2 party system is grinding us down. Soemtimes, I feel it is taking the rest of the world along. Congratualtions to the Greens!!
ReplyDeleteI hated the two party (First Past the Post System) when we had it. Back in those days we did have a third party called Social Credit, the most they ever gained was one electorate but not always but they slogged on. I am not sure if many Kiwis ever actually got what their policies were exactly but often voted for them when they were heartily disgusted with the other two. But it was all pretty hopeless. Apart from all these other parties and coalitions, MMP encourages diversity and better representation of people of all kinds.
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