Monday, July 11, 2005

It's not over by a long shot

I want to make brief comment on several comments appearing in blogs (and the MSM in parts) that the election is over and the government will be National/NZ First. My points:

1. The prize is for first across the finish line, not first across the start line.
2. MMP produces wierd results. Case in point - Peter Dunne got 6.6% last time in the space of about 7 seconds.
3. If NZ First had gone with Labour in 1996, we would have had 9 years of a centre left government (if it lasted).
4. In 1978 & 1981 there were more votes for Labour than National. A Social Democrat Party (Social Credit) got 16% of the vote in 1978 and 22% in 1981.
5. We had Labour governments in 1984, 1987. If things had been slightly different in 1978 & 1981 we could have had them then too. We could have had one in 1996. We have had one in 1999 & 2002. So, since 1978 we could quite easily have had 8/10 Labour governments.

The electorate in New Zealand is essentially egalitarian, and as the above shows, tends to show support toward social democratic Labour. There is ample evidence of this.

People who say the result is all but over need a serious reality check. This will go down to the wire, and probably beyond.

Comments:
I'm not so sure, I think that Labour could hobble over the line on its one remaining good leg and suprise everyone, because the biggest prob we have is the fact tht the vast majority of Kiwis only see the media coverage and they will be swayed by it. And issue on this is they see Winston First as a threat of being Kingmaker, this scares them and they think the way to prevent it is to vote for one of the majr parties, the prob with this is you end up making him kingmaker by doing this, but people don't understand this logic, we need to get this out there.
 
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