There is a historic joint conference between the Maori Party and the MANA Party in June of this month. If work can be done where the MANA Party and Maori Party agree to not stand candidates in certain Maori electorates, thus allowing one to run, while competing for Party vote, then MANA and Maori Party could take all the seats off Labour and become a real voice for Maoridom.
An example of the strategy could see the following…
Te Tai Tokerau – Hone Harawira runs with no Maori Party candidate standing, but both parties listed in the Party vote section.
Hauraki-Waikato – Maori Party candidate runs with no MANA candidate, but both parties listed in the party vote section.
Ikaroa-Rāwhiti – MANA Party candidate runs with no Maori Party candidate, but both parties listed in the party vote section.
Tāmaki Makaurau – Maori Party candidate runs with no MANA Party candidate, but both parties listed in the party vote section.
Te Tai Hauāuru – Maori Party candidate runs with no MANA Party candidate, but both parties listed in the party vote section.
Te Tai Tonga – Maori Party candidate runs with no MANA Party candidate, but both parties listed in the party vote section.
Waiariki – Does Te Ururoa Flavell stand again or does he retire if Marama Fox is the one pushing for reunification?
Working together to rob Labour of the Maori electorates would be a sweet pay back for what Labour did to MANA in the election.
I hope this dosnt go ahead,Maori support National,and National bashed Mana worse than Labour. National would love this deal ,it gives them chance to juggle the results to suit themselves.
Mana. Nz 1st and Greens much better for NZ and a chance to get rid of Nats.
Interesting – and it clearly allows voters to choose a Maori/Mana MP and party-vote Labour, for which there is plentiful precedent. If it also provokes an increased turnout in the Maori seats it probably increases the number of party votes; the historically low turnout does not help the left in the overall election result.
Are you suggesting Marama Fox is cool on alliance with National?
An interesting question Martyn, myself i would envisage much the same electoral arrangement being formed as the Internet-Mana one,
Obviously the Maori Party with 2 MP’s in the Parliament have the upper hand in terms of negotiating strength,
A Maori-Mana or Mana-Maori Party i would suggest in terms of the Party vote would be worth at least one more MP from the ballot,
i would suggest an accomodation where the campaign is a joint ticket with either Party being able to disengage to sit in opposition should there be no agreement over which bloc of the Parliament should be supported post election 2017,
The all important Party List, and, Annette would have to stand aside in Waiariki to give Te Ururoa the seat for this to have any chance of being agreed, numbers 2 and 4 would be reserved for Mana with numbers 1 and 3 being the province of the Maori Party,
The sensitive seat of course is Ikaroa-Rawhiti from whence Marama Fox hails, as i believe neither Marama nor Nikora could wrest this seat off Labour’s Meka Whaitiri personal ego’s would need to be put away in favor of a combined Mana-Maori Party vote campaign,
Crucially Te Tai Tokerau is only held by Labour by 700 odd votes and on paper Hone campaigning on a Mana-Maori Party ticket would easily take it back again,
There is a probable 5 MP voting bloc possible with a re-uniting of the two wings of original Maori Party, 3 Maori Party and 2 Mana,
I would suggest that such a bloc in the next Parliament could have the numbers to sit on the cross benches and horse trade with either bloc left or right pretty much setting the agenda…
?”June of this month”?
I assume that you meant to type some date in this month of June, but didn’t catch in editing because it didn’t show up on spell-check.
Still, it did give me the impetus to go over to the MANA site and check their news section which has been empty since October last year. Didn’t see anything about this, but there was a post about the recent MANA AGM which I hadn’t heard about elsewhere:
http://mana.net.nz/2015/06/mana-still-pumpin/
With the GP having elected Shaw as coleader, MANA are starting to look like the only party of the left, left in NZ politics. I will be watching developments in this possible deal with the MP with interest.
So let me see……. by getting an alliance of some sort happening, the two parties can bash up on Labour who are more Maori friendly and presently are not in government, and keep National in power so they can take land of Maori to sell to private investors for housing and so on…..
Now all we need is for the Labour Party, Greens and New Zealand First to do the same thing in some of the general seats. Seems like a no-brainer while those seats continue to use the not quite democratic enough first past the post system.
I can dream right!
Endorsing a single Labour/Greens/ NZFirst candidate in Ohariu to flush the Dunney would be a good example.
Imagine this works as envisioned in 2017, assuming that all party votes stayed the same. It wouldn’t really hurt Labour, as their 7 Māori seat MPs would be replaced by list MPs. Neither Mana nor Māori get a high enough party vote to bring in any list MPs, and as with the original Māori Party result, they would both create overhang seats.
Assuming National did the same deals to keep ACT in Epsom and Dunne in Ohariu with the same results, the seat numbers would look something like:
National Party 60
ACT New Zealand 1
United Future 1
Subtotal 62
Labour Party 32
Green Party 14
New Zealand First Party 11
Subtotal 57
Māori Party 4
MANA 3
Total 126
with 3-4 Mana MPs leaning against National, and 3-4 Māori MPs leaning against Labour, they pretty much cancel each other out when it comes to determining who gets a majority in parliament, unless they can agree to swing the same way. I can’t see Mana going near National without a cream pie (or a handful of mud ;), and it would presumably take a mutiny against the current Māori Party leadership to swing them towards Labour. Besides, if the two parties are collaborating against Labour, it seems unlikely (although not impossible) they would both support a “Labour-led” government.
So overall, Mana gets the MPs it deserves, considering they got a higher party vote (1.42%) than Māori (1.32%), ACT (0.69%) or United Future (who only got 0.22%!), but it doesn’t seem to make any difference to who controls the government.
I think your analysis relies on Maori Party supporting National
Of course they would. The Maori Party has been actively supporting National for the last 6 and half years. They won’t change. A vote for the Maori Party is a vote for National.
The Maori Party has never really had the chance to support Labour before. I’m sure they would prefer to over National.
I doubt that. The Maori Party have shown their true blue colours. Will the Maori Party fold again and continue to support National when National sell off crown land to their mates?
What did the Mana Party in was Hone needing a white man to win. Ask Northland Maori what they thought. They will tell you that they lost confidence in Hone, when he and Dotcom went into an alliance.
Any true Mana supporter wouldn’t have taken one bit of notice what Labour or any other party had said.
The Maori party lost 6 out of 7 seats because of it’s close alliance and support of the National government, honestly, how will that help the Mana party? it certainly won’t end up being a “sweet pay back” against Labour, it will just hurt Mana even more.
I sincerely hope Mana consider things very carefully. My whanau rigorously supported MP when established, and have not forgiven them for their treachoury in succumbing to Natzism with feeble excuses like tent pissing. They got rigorous support one time only – right up until they proved their lack of principles and baublism after their first stand. Along comes Mana and a viable alternative. Any accommodation will simply mean Mana is not an alternative.
MP does not deserve to exist (in my family’s minds) – but we’ll see. It’ll be a question of whether or not Mana gets their vote(s)
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