Is it the end for Helen Clark and Labour?
Prime Minister John Key?
A long wait in limbo while the minor party with the swing vote makes up its mind who offers the best [del]baubles[/del] policy compromise.
I think maggenpye has nailed it in one. John Campbell built towers out of his kids building blocks tonight showing how the percentages added up and it’s neck and neck.
I would prefer to vote in the mob offering the fewer bribes, but I’ve lost count.
I’d like the Greens to still have a say, but not too much as try still seem to have an over-abundance of nuts. That’s going to be difficult for me as they’ve aligned themselves with Labour.
My solution would be to place all candidates on a small desert island. One major party gets all the food, the other all the water. All the minor parties are armed, and when there’s 120 survivors, we have our parliament. 
Yup, I agree with both maggenpye and dynamitedave. We may not know how this all works out for days (one election took weeks to conclude the tussling, as I recall).
I just hope someone gets elected who knows how to run a country, instead of just grinning for the camera.
Well said.
I can’t even imagine that either of the potential leaders are capable of giving a speech like Obama’s acceptance one.
It’s the least exciting election I can remember, even though they’re calling it a nail-biter. Oh for the days where the result was a foregone conclusion and I could throw a vote towards the McGillicudy Serious Party!
My cousin’s on the ballot paper - his party’s very unlikely to get 5% and I don’t agree with their policies, so I won’t be voting for them - but hey, at least he’s giving it a go.
I’m just hoping Winston Peters gets annihilated: he’s been in politics since 1978, and has yet to accomplish anything constructive. His latest round of shenanigans should have been enough to finish him, but he leads a charmed life politically.
Labour have run a rubbish campaign: too much trying to nobble Key with phoney scandals, and no attention paid to the biggest complaints against them: that they’re aloof, condescending and out of touch. Sadly, the Greens pander to that tendency of “We know what’s right for you”, and they’re a shoe-in for a Labour coalition. Can’t stand the bastards. Labour’s new-found bribe policy worries me, too: where are they going to find the money to fund all these promises?
Assuming Peters is wiped out {and that’s never a guarantee}, and that the Greens are safely with Labour, that could leave the Maori Party in the very interesting position of kingmakers: Pita Sharpes is open to working with the Nats, but they’re going to want some serious policy concessions.
I miss first past the post.
Yep - apparently Sharples has said they’ll do a quick run of huis around the country to get an idea of which way they should jump. He’s also said they want the Maori seats entrenched and (AFAIK) neither main party has offered to do that.
Are we still pretending that Turia is co-leader?
Winston has a pact with the devil - or the ghost of Rob Muldoon.
I doubt even the devil would want Winston now – he’d give Ol’ Nick some serious bad press. That thing he and his party have pulled with the direct mail/ website links is lunacy.
Forgive the hijack, but do you really? As a Canadian hoping for a similar reform, I wonder if this is a common sentiment. What’s the verdict on MMP in NZ?
Let’s just hope they elect somebody who understands that NZ ( a country I am fond of ) needs to pull its weight and shouldn’t write cheques it can’t cash. Being “Green and peaceful” is nice, but you need to be able to back it up with a straight face.
Yes. The idea was that it would give the minor parties a say in the running of things, but the reality has been that since nobody can really get together enough seats to rule by a simple majority, any head-the-ball party which can scrape together enough seats - and yes, I’m looking at you New Zealand First - gets to play kingmaker: they’ll back whichever major party will form a coalition with them in exchange for who offers the choicest scraps from the table.
It’s pretty bloody cynical, really: the minors don’t even demand a serious effect on policy, which MMP was designed to ensure. They’ll whore themselves out to whoever offers a couple of seats in Cabinet, and instead of acting as a check on governance they’ll be thrown a couple of wildly unpopular but ineffectual bills as a sop - and yes, I’m looking at you The Green Party and your bloody anti-smacking legislation - and otherwise be content to vote the party line.
We still effectively get the governance by fiat of FPP, except that the majority party doing the fiating first has to win the backing of a bunch of loons only a handful of people seriously vote for anyway: you can win only 5% of the vote and still effectively hold the country to ransom for weeks while you whore yourself to the highest bidder.
Come on guys, New Zealand election, New Zealand election, that’s all anyone ever posts around here anymore. I can’t wait until it’s over.
Cut us some slack; it’s the defining moment for a generation here: do we vote for the slick former currency trader who’ll sell off everything not nailed down, or keep the scary dyke Who Knows What’s Good For You? Tempers are bound to get a little heated.
We’re seeing more of the flaws because the last election allowed a minor party [Evil Hiss] Winston [/EH] to basically hold the country to ransom while he made the best personal deal he could. This time, another party is openly playing the same game. Previously, it’s gone a little better.
Scissorjack’s post reflects pretty much how cynical we’ve become about it. At least it gives people the chance to vote tactically (voting for a party aligned with the one you’d prefer, without actually giving the bastards your tacit approval), which did seem to work effectively for (IIRC) the election before last when the Labour majority lessened by almost the same amount as the Greens’ votes increased.
The flipside is that a major party will willingly get into bed with pretty much anyone who can guarantee them seats in the House, which leads to principles being thrown out of the window and some pretty odd ideological bed-hopping.
Last time the supposedly left-wing Labour nearly lost, but survived by cobbling a coalition together out of The Greens - not so ideologically surprising so far - and New Zealand First {home of the aforementioned and shamelessly venal Winston Peters}, who pander to the retired white middle-classes with unashamed race-baiting and free bus passes. Under MMP, sheer naked pragmatism rules the day.
Hey, I voted for STV - I just see MMP as better (slightly) than FPP. YMMV! OK?
So did I.
And what’s wrong with that? What’s so bad about the government having a blend of ideologies based on voter proportions, rather than being fixed to the “principles” of the party that happens to achieve plurality? Granted, MMP isn’t perfect (no voting system is), but IMO it’s a damn sight fairer than FPP ever was.
placebo: Moral of the story is that there is that there is no consensus on the MMP/FPP debate, and I doubt there will be any time soon. It really is just another political issue.
Friends of mine today asked if I understood MMP. My answer was – I supported STV (so, this is a “me too”, folks), and MMP is not my favourite way to go. It has advantages over FTP (where parties which the vast majority of the country didn’t vote for, gained office), but it’s still a dog’s breakfast of a political system.
Two hours to go before the first results …