The New Citizen Party is going to contest Botany, and aims to get at least 6 MPs in the general election. Their plan just announced in Beijing involves winning Botany, and “our party leaders will then be talking with Maori tribes to also get their party votes for us to get at least six candidates as MPs at this year’s election.” Quite why Aotearoa’s oldest citizens would support a New Citizen’s party isn’t made clear.
But ultimately nobody knows quite where to place them. Can they win reasonable support in a seat like Botany, where more than half the population are migrants? Other parties have had trouble reaching far into the East Asian diaspora. What sort of party will they be? Their general philosophy seems reasonably conservative, but they have no policies yet (indeed they’re still putting their executive committee together), and include ex-Labour Stephen Ching in their founders. Perhaps, they envisage something like the Maori Party, where members can hold completely different opinions and it somehow doesn’t matter? (Even if they can’t commit to providing a government with all their votes, and it leaves constituents not knowing what they’re voting for). If they’re appealing for Maori voters they’ll be harshly resisted by the Maori party of course…
Certainly it’ll be interesting to see which candidates line up on February 8. Kenneth Wang was third with 4717 votes in 2008, and has been asked to stand again – if he does, he’ll be targeting a lot of the same voters as NCP, although he’ll now be dragged back by the ACT brand. Having had a corrupt MP, the voters probably don’t want to vote for the party of allowance-abusing Hide and the baby ID stealer.
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Just in case anyone hasn’t seen it: Dan News has Maggie Barry’s new billboard ready to go. There is no other electorate she could contest really. Obviously this will be more evidence for the Right-Wing of the complete left wing bias of Radio NZ. Or maybe won’t be mentioned in their arguments…
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Sandra Goudie is retiring. Never made much of an impression after ousting Jeanette Fitzsimons from Coromandel. She lists her achievements in 9 years as an MP as the Whangamata Marina so opposed by many locals, surfers and environmentalists, and the Kopu Bridge that Labour approved. Teh Herald nicely credit her in their photo as a Labour MP, which I’m sure Labour won’t thank them for… good to see editing standards at their best.
[Edit: Herald’s now fixed caption]
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