The biggest problem with political journalism in NZ is that we have MMP politics and a First Past the Post press gallery. At some point, someone is going to have to break it to them that despite their flawed landline opinion polls, David Cunliffe has a very good chance of becoming the next Prime Minister of NZ.
The lack of working knowledge many voters have of MMP paints a grim picture of an overwhelming victory to John Key.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
National won only a few thousand votes more in 2011 than they did in 2008, the reason their percentage soared was because of the lowest voter turn out in a century. If the opposition party’s can reach out and mobilise this time around they will lower that percentage considerably. This is one of the reasons why National are only polling 44% on iPredict.
With that context, there are a number of MMP challenges that seriously challenge a return to power for John Key.
John Key – Mr No Mates
Here’s a beer for you John, it’s a Speights. Speights No Mates. Sure Key will have the highest percentage on election night, but he might not have anyone to go into coalition with. If ACT and the Maori Party get eliminated this election, Key can’t form a majority with United Future. Even the threat of losing will force Key to consider throwing East Coast Bays for Colin Craig. That’s how desperate for mates Key will be.
Waiariki
This makes Annette Sykes winning in Waiariki so vital. The Maori Party will lose their other two seats but may poll 2% Party vote, if Flavell beats Annette, he’ll bring in 2 MPs on his coat tails.
Epsom
If Labour and Green Epsom voters vote Paul Goldsmith, they end ACT out and stop them coat tailing in Jamie Whyte.
Cunliffe’s grand alliance strategy
NZ would be lucky to have a leader as intelligent and as smart as David Cunliffe to lead it, and the chances he will are far greater than currently predicted. Cunliffe may not be able to find co-operation within his own Caucus due to the ABCs, but the beauty of this strategy is that he creates that co-operation by a grand alliance with all the left and the political centre.
If the narrative that Key will romp home with a landslide remains unchallenged there will be a lot of very angry National Party voters come election night feeling cheated.
Absolutely. NZ needs this to happen!
what about a deal between maori party and labour?
Be careful of quoting iPredict Bomber.
As a few of us have written on here (who are supporters of what you write), iPredict is SO easy to fiddle (in the short to medium term, and probably in the long term) that any reference to it, to support an argument looks rather light weight.
The small party vote is easy to manipulate, not so with the larger party’s
Fair enough Bomber. I’m not wanting to get into a fight over this, as it is a minor point.
However for about a $100 one could make the National party vote jump (or fall) 2% today, on iPredict.
I imagine that’s chump change to a fair few of the National Parties financial backers, so if they needed a ‘positive story’………there’s a cheap option for them.
And for Labour the same +- 2 % can be obtained for a $50 out lay.
John Key has plenty of mates.
– ACT
– Conservatives
– United Future
– Maori Party
– New Zealand First
New Zealand deserves better than Cunliffe, a leader polling around 9% popularity leading a party that makes policy on the hoof and sends mixed messages to the electorate.
Lets hope for the sake of New Zealand’s future that a John Key led government is the result on September 20.
If you think we should be voting based on the leader’s popularity, then I say you are voting for the wrong reasons. Honestly, who gives a shit if Cunliffe is considered “a good bloke” or someone who’d be “great to have a bbq and a beer with” as is reported about Key from random people on the street interviewed by the herald. The real issue is, what about policy? Labour and Greens together have a stronger policy base that looks to make life better for those struggling, and still leave the better off quite comfortable. It is that we should be thinking about. Screw the cult of personality mindset -It has been degrading our political landscape for too long.
John Keys main mate has been the media and my feeling is that the penny is finally starting to drop for them, as to what a vacuous waste of space he has been.Only the easily fooled have bought into his trickery.
Selling off N.Zs prized assets was absolute treasonous and his only policy. Pathetic!
He will go down as one of New Zealands’ worst prime ministers of all time,(no mean feat when you look at Shipley and Muldoon) and David Cunliffe once elected will prove to be one of the best!
The election can’t come soon enough!
The game ain’t over until the fat lady sings…
The sensationalist media and political advertising have turned politics into a carnival. The problem for the Left is false consciousness; a consciousness which has been manipulated and leads to people voting for a party which does not represent their interests. A rational working-class voter would vote for a party that would represent their interests. The empirical facts are there for all to see: inequality widening by the year, more and more people struggling to get by. Yet National polls at 45%.
With the circus created, politics now appeals to irrational feelings, the cult of personality, the rise of the celebrity politician and the ever importance of impression management. All of this is superficial of course, but our desires are being manipulated, and the effect is that some voters will decide to vote based on whether they emotionally connect with a party leader irrespective of what they know. “John Key, yeah he seems like a nice guy, I wouldn’t mind having a beer with him.” …. this is the battle the Left is up against. The solution, which I look to the ideas of Jurgen Habermas, is to strengthen the public sphere, engage in dialogue without ideological perceptions being seen as truth (to put his words very, very briefly).
Having one viewpoint entering the prism and expanding out thereby populating our entire way of thinking is dangerous. It makes us think politically in terms of the established discourse within the parliamentary regime – the language of the neoliberals and capitalists. This can explain why the ‘Left’ and ‘Communism’ and ‘Socialism’ and ‘Marxist’ are seen as dirty words…. and the crime which is the destructive forces of capitalism remains ‘they way things are… the way things ought to be.’ With this discourse not being challenged by competing voices, we are a long way from liberating ourselves from the conditions that enslave us.
Very very insightful Heteroglossia.
We need more of this kind of analysis!
I thought Key was not prepared to have Peters in any government he leads? Surely Dear Leader wasn’t telling porkies?!?!
Anyway – with those five parties plus National, Matthew, are you telling us that that six-headed hydra-beast is a stable government?!
Jeez, that makes a Labour/Green/ManaInternet positively geologically-stable by comparison!!!
It seems somewhat of a disconnect to be predicting with 74% chance that National will provide the next PM (i.e. Key) yet they will apparently do so with just 44% of the vote. Clearly the punters think some sort of deal with National and another party will get done (which party(s) would that be?) or maybe a minority Government perhaps?
As well as Epsom, Green Party supporters in Ohariu should get their heads around voting strategically for the Labour candidate.
Last time, in 2011, had Green Party supporters cast their Electorate Vote for Charles Chauvel, Dunne would have lost. And the Nats would have been down one coalition partner.
If the voters of Epsom ‘get’ MMP (and I don’t begrudge their strategic voting), then the Left have to catch up, or face a third term of this shabby government. As always, the power is in our hands.
Labour – they’re trapped – pincered between a left leaning National government and the rise of the far left in MIP. The center vote has been squeezed out of the picture for Labour and they are looking and acting bewildered – it really is hard to see what they can pull out of the hat but a few weeks of campaigning may give them a lift and National a drop. Both of these things will need to happen as well as the Greens and MIP growing the vote. If NZ First is in the picture it means trouble.
David Cunnliffe has already said that Labour will scrap the 1 seat plus 2% =3 Seats scenario. It is a fact that Labour has not played the “cup-of-tea” strategy yet. And neither should they this election. If after the election they win enough votes to clobber a coalition together then that is what they should do. Above all they will win only if they have policies that the bottom half of the food chain can accept.
We better get used to TPPA being signed …I remember when Labour was “left” !
In the blue corner we have National, with a long history of promoting the interests of global corporations, money-lenders and opportunists
And in the red corner we have Labour, with a long history of promoting the interests of global corporations, money-lenders and opportunists.
Fair comment, the 1980s were a disgrace, however to be fair Labour are favouring the little people in their Christchurch Insurance policy. They have obviously worried the corporates, note the hysterical response from Gerry Brownlee and the industry hacks.
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