One of the cast iron laws of politics in any system using a proportional system of voting is that no single party can ever achieve total victory in an election. Yet, that cast iron rule is about to be tested because Jacinda Ardern and the Labour Party may be about to deliver the first ever majority government in New Zealand’s modern electoral history.
The final day of voting is this Saturday, and Ardern is immensely popular – and with very good reason! Polling suggests that average Kiwi’s are grateful that she put the needs and health of citizens first, and that she then delivered a communications masterclass keeping everyone working together towards eliminating COVID. Alongside her, the Director General of Health – Ashley Bloomfield – became an essential part of story, and the Ardern/Bloomfield double act at daily 1pm briefings became an essential part of the lockdown experience in New Zealand. Jacinda’s three slogans for the pandemic have been: ‘Go hard and go early’ in your public health actions, trust in the ‘team of five million’ New Zealanders to stick to lockdown requirements, and while you are at it: ‘Be kind!’. The result has been long periods of zero community transmission of COVID interspersed with brief outbreaks that have been dealt with decisively. Not for nothing has a recent Bloomberg assessment ranked New Zealand as the most successful responder to the pandemic in the world.
Such is the level of trust that Ardern has created, she’s managed to momentarily drown out the whining and lobbying of business groups who insist that any lockdown is ‘death to the economy’. And the major party that caters to the whims of those business lobbyists – the National Party – is languishing in the polls and has no chance of forming any kind of coalition to stop Ardern becoming Prime Minister again.
A few days ago the latest opinion polls had Labour – 47%, National – 32%, ACT – 8%, Greens – 6%, NZ First – 2% (with another 5% of the vote being shared between a raft of tiny rats n mice and crazy religious folk’s parties that will never make it into parliament).
Proportional Representation systems usually provide for no clear winners on election night, followed by complicated coalition governments that only take shape after weeks of negotiation after election day (which has its charms, why else would Borgen be so popular?), but this time may be different, so there is a lot to watch out for on election day on October 17th.
- Will Ardern lead New Zealand’s first ever Majority government? Proportional representation was introduced in 1996, and since then there has only been one previous government that nearly achieved a majority. At 47% in current polling, Labour could do it – almost! At 48% they definitely would. It depends on whether a number of minor parties fail to reach the 5% vote threshold for actually entering parliament. If they don’t, then their vote is redistributed and Labour would benefit from that and get up over the line.
- Do we WANT Labour to get a majority? Ardern certainly deserves it for being a simply splendid person and an inspirational Prime Minister. But her party are not quite as progressive and splendid as you might hope. Numerous progressive folk think that Jacinda is amazing in a crisis and an inspirational leader, but her political party has been a bit meh at delivering transformational change. Maybe it would be better if Labour was actually forced to go into coalition with a more progressive party? Which leads to…
- Help, help, Jacinda is actually on the brink of wiping out my party – the Green Party! I’m sure it isn’t a deliberate strategy (surely not Jacinda, say it ain’t so!), but Jacinda is so popular with young votes, that she’s won the votes of many of the Green Party’s young supporters. We are currently polling on 6%, and if we drop below 5% on election day we are out of Parliament! There has been a lot of concerted door-knocking and phone banking by our droves of dedicated activists, but we are nervous! But not as nervous as…
- Winston Peters! The old fox of NZ First. The wily, unprincipled, ‘I’m a centrist’ except when ‘I’m also a racist’, except when ‘I’m a reasonable guy’, except when ‘I’m fear-mongering among pensioners about immigrants flooding their neighbourhoods’ kind of politician. This is the guy who Jacinda had to go into coalition with to form government in 2017 and we hated it. She’s done a great job keeping NZ First’s worst impulses at bay, and she’s carefully kept Winston’s latent nativism and anti-immigrant tendencies well off the legislative agenda for the last three years. But has the craven populist charisma of Winston finally met its match? NZ First is currently polling at 2% and needs a minor miracle to get up over 5% and back into parliament. Why? Some pundits think that Jacinda is so popular that when Winston began attacking her on the campaign trail, it tanked his support. Jacinda told us to ‘Be Kind!’. Winston didn’t listen and now we think he’s going to pay the price….
- Lock and Load! Gun nuts and libertarians are on the rise! The ACT Party has been an irritating minor player in NZ politics for decades – arch neoliberals with a weird libertarian vibe and one single politician in parliament. But they pulled off a stroke of (evil) genius and took on the mantle of ‘gun rights’ after Jacinda moved swiftly to institute major gun controls in the wake of the Christchurch Mosque Massacre last year. They have surged from 1% to 8% - partly capitalising on the deep unpopularity of National and NZ First. This is sad for New Zealand. They are only polling 8%, but it is still a shame to see any foothold for the gun crazies in NZ politics.
So, while the major story arc of this election is Jacinda surging to a well-deserved victory, the end of season storylines that need tying off are:
- Will Jacinda get her Majority government, and if she does, will she then show that she is willing to move forward with some truly progressive policy on climate and poverty by voluntarily inviting the Greens into a coalition government? She won’t have to, but I’m really hoping she does.
- Will the Greens poll above 5% and get back into parliament at all? And if so, will we be in a position to nudge Ardern into some coalition negotiations? This is the big storyline for my election night party.
- Will Winston Peters and NZ First depart and never be seen again?
- How low can National go? And how much of their vote will end up shifting to ACT and its gun-lovin crazies?
If you are worried that the rise of ACT signals that NZ politics has been infected by nasty diseases from the US, I can quickly reassure you that there are no less than three minor parties seeking to recruit NZ into the Kingdom of God. None of them are polling over 1%.
So, let the team of five million assemble at the behest of super-Jacinda and may (at least) 5% of them be Green!