Vote 08

[naki]

I think that the media had a lot to do with the final result of this year's poll. If they had been as negative in their portrayal of John Key as they have been about Helen, things might have squared up differently.

I'm amazed that NZ ended up electing a man with no political c.v. to speak of. In the good old days, you had to prove yourself in an electorate, prove yourself as a sitting member of government, then prove yourself as a minister before you were entrusted with the top chair. The swiftness of Mr Key's ascent should wave all kind of red flags to the voters. It will be interesting to see who is actually leading National at the next election.

[Lux]

Hmmm I definitely noticed the bias.

And what a difference a leader makes, Key obviously saw the mistakes Brash made, mind you even a blind deaf man could have seen where he went wrong -

I think what put me off Key was him taking the little Maori girl mascot with him to Waitangi, that kinda made me feel sick, partly because of my mistrust of anything/one concerning the natty party - What are his credentials exactly, that he's a self made money man? I'd be interested to see more detail in how he went about obtaining his wealth.

I still think he's a puppet leader.

Interestingly when I was over at the Hospital yesterday an elderly couple were talking about
National selling off the Country during there last time in office - it appears some people HAVEN'T forgotten the reality of life under National - and even though media are raving on about Nats overwhelming victory, I believe it was a very close game.

[naki]

59 votes looks great on paper, but without the help of ACT, they could still very easily have ended up missing out.

[sparrow]

It's an interesting one Naki. Things worked out pretty well for National. If NZF had got in then it was game on or if Labour had got a smidgeon more of the Party vote.

I haven't forgotten the reality of life under National either and I'm not (quite) elderly. I don't think Key is a puppet leader, but he can be rolled. I expect him to do some rolling himself though. This is gonna be interesting.

[ringdove]

We've been watching the results with interest from afar in New Delhi.
Here in India we have a theory about elections which we call "anti-incumbency". This is the idea that there is always a negative undercurrent against an incumbent government at election time based on the mere fact of its being the incumbent government. The electorate likes to throw out people and bring new ones in every five years even if the "new" ones arent really new and have been in power in the previous round.
This keeps everyone on their toes.
According to this analysis, it is only situations where anti-incumbency doesnt work that need to be explained!
Cheers
Ringdove

[kokonutwoman]

Nice insight Ringdove. And nice to see you again

[ringdove]

Thank you kokonutwoman and it's good to hear from you too.
Ringdove

[sparrow]

Nov 13, 2008 3:37:34 GMT 12 ringdove said:

We've been watching the results with interest from afar in New Delhi.
Here in India we have a theory about elections which we call "anti-incumbency". This is the idea that there is always a negative undercurrent against an incumbent government at election time based on the mere fact of its being the incumbent government. The electorate likes to throw out people and bring new ones in every five years even if the "new" ones arent really new and have been in power in the previous round.
This keeps everyone on their toes.
According to this analysis, it is only situations where anti-incumbency doesnt work that need to be explained!
Cheers
Ringdove

Hi Ringdove

Good to see you! Yep. I would agree with this analysis. Our new labour leader has called this election a "change of face", but "not direction". In some ways I would agree with him. One of the problems in the last 25 years is that Governments have taken elections as mandates for every single weird and wacky policy they have made up at Party Headquarters. I don't think that is the case. Probably the worst one was when National in 1990 campaigned on a platform of a Fair and Decent Society. When they got into power they went harder on the neo-liberal reforms first implemented by Labour. As there did not appear to be a choice between both large parties in NZ (Labour or National) in the 1990s, this saw the introduction of MMP to slow or halt the larger parties.

One of the things that is astounding is the proponents of economic policy to "save us" from this recession (which is going to be a depression) when they were the ones that got us here in the first place. What's happened is a failure of neo-liberal reforms and the free market greed that got us to this position.

[ringdove]

Spot on Sparrow!
That's exactly how "anti-incumbency" works. Parties get placed in power without realising that they are there because voters needed a change of face and not necessarily because they comprehensively approved of their party programme.

Reality usually dawns on them but too late.

Neo=liberalism or what passes for it in economic terms has been playing out its havoc in India as well. The Indian economy which used to be considerably more autonomous, relatively speaking, has become pronouncedly dependent on economic trends in the US etc. The recent "meltdown" affected our stock exchanges in a big way when, logically speaking, Indian economic entities had little to with the crisis one way or the other.

Ringdove