Election Time
November 11, 2008 – 9:57 pm
Finally the election is over for another 3 years – with the both the NZ and USA elections falling on the same week I was getting pretty sick of all the politics in our lives. It is unfortunate that the one election that will really affect our lives over the next few years was held on the other side of the world, but I can’t say I am unhappy with the way that one turned out. It’s not I think that Obama is the new messiah like some of his followers seem the believe, just that the thought of Palin as president after McCain’s inevitable return to the tomb gave me nightmares.
Saturday’s results did not please me so much, even though it was something of a foregone conclusion. Just about everything the Helen Clark government has done over the last 9 years I have agreed with, and I would have been content to see them get another term. Unfortunately I think they were getting a bit tired after so long in government and National certainly ran rings around them during the campaign. I don’t really have anything against National except that for the most part they are made up of the same moldy suits that we dumped in 1999 and they haven’t exactly been a robust opposition – hopefully they manage to get some new blood into cabinet.
As I write this, the new government is still being congealed. With any luck ACT will have very little influence - although they made a big song and dance about finally being part of the government in reality their support has been steadily dropping for a decade. National has been courting the Mäori party – I think they could do worse if they want to form a centralist government and such a coalition has the added bonus of royally pissing off Sir Rogor Douglas. Of the minor parties, only United Future could really be said to be happy. Although they lost 2 list MPs, Peter Dunne did manage to get into government again; perhaps he going for some sort of record.
New Zealand First must be smarting – at 4.21% they came close to the threshold. In some ways I will be sorry to see Winston go – I think he had really found his calling as Minister of Foreign Affairs. But in every other respect he seemed to invite all the criticisms that were leveled at him on a daily basis.
The bottom of the office results table makes for depressing reading, unless you take delight in the misfortunes of others. Both Residents Action Movement and The Republic of New Zealand Party did particularly poorly with 405 and 296 votes respectively, both below the 500 paid up members you need to register a political party in NZ. If not even your own members will vote for you, perhaps it is time to move on.
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