The Rankin File: #34

It is rumoured that there will be two or three by­elections early in 1998: in Taranaki / King Country, Port Waikato, and Epsom. All will have something in common; "safe" National seats in which a 1993­96 National Minister had to give way to another person as the local candidate in 1996. Each of those Ministers - Roger Maxwell, Simon Upton, Doug Graham - returned to Parliament as a list MP. They are the three natural candidates for National in the by­elections, should they take place.

These by-elections will be just like "First­Past­the­Post" by­elections, in that the result will affect the party arithmetic in Parliament. Thus, constituency by-elections will be elections between parties. As a matter of contrast, parties are now largely irrelevant in constituency general elections.

What makes the 1998 by­elections intriguing is that the abovementioned gentlemen are already MPs. Voters may see little point in voting in an MP who is already an MP. They may prefer to vote for a local MP of another party, rather than simply endorse a sitting MP as an electorate MP.

If the list MPs become electorate MPs, the real winners of the by­elections will be the next candidates on National's 1996 list. If, for example, Roger Maxwell wins the by­election in Taranaki / King Country, then the new MP from the old list will most likely have nothing to do with the Taranaki / King Country region.

The Port Waikato by­election is the most intriguing, because NZ First was second there in 1996. It seems highly unlikely that the two governing parties will run candidates against each other.

By­election accommodations between National and NZ First will prove indicative of what's to come. My guess is that Winston Peters will offer not to promote additional NZ First MPs into Cabinet in 1998 in return for a deal on constituency candidacy. As part of that deal, National will agree to not stand candidates against all of the present NZ First Ministers, so long as those Ministers do not seek to stand in seats in which a National MP is seeking reelection.

That would mean, for example, no National candidates in Tauranga, Whangarei, Rimutaka, Rongotai. And, if all the Maori MPs stay with the Coalition Government, the deal would mean no National candidates in Maori electorates. National would probably do a similar deal with Act, by not standing candidates in Wellington Central and Auckland Central.

New Zealand First will survive as an electorate party, not as a list party, I believe. Peters will win Tauranga if National do not oppose him.

Peters will actually have considerable leverage to force this scenario. The APEC Conference is scheduled for Auckland in the Springtime of 1999. National's leadership will not let this PR opportunity go to Clark, Cullen and Moore. Peters will always have the option of threatening to force a pre­APEC election if National does not agree to an electoral accommodation with NZ First.

So what about the Opposition parties? Helen Clark is still talking about Labour winning outright. And Jeanette Fitzsimons is not only saying that the Greens can get 5% of the vote, but that they don't deserve to be in Parliament at all if they cannot get 5%. The Opposition is in serious danger of being outthought with respect to election strategy. Obviously, Labour, the Greens, and the Alliance (and perhaps a credible Maori Party with its own list) will have to reach similar accommodations in constituencies, if only to ensure that the smaller parties can avoid the 5% threshold.

If the Government parties reach accommodation (and I include Act and United among their ranks), but the Opposition Parties run against each other in key constituencies, then the 1999 election (December 1999?) may result as follows:

The underlying reason why electoral accommodations will take place between prospective coalition partners is the retention of FPP voting in the constituencies. FPP voting means the ever­present risk of "vote splitting". Thus, in the Port Waikato by­election, NZ First will not stand a candidate, to minimise the danger for the Government of the Labour candidate "coming through the middle". (They may also not stand a candidate to avoid the risk of embarrassment.)

This problem can only be overcome by introducing Australian­style preferential voting in constituencies. In that way, coalition parties can afford to stand candidates against each other, knowing that their voters' second preferences will mostly go the other coalition candidate.

In the absence of preferential constituency voting, MMP in New Zealand will evolve so that coalitions will be signalled by simply observing who's doing deals with who over constituency candidates. There is nothing new about this in New Zealand. Until the 1950s, such deals were not uncommon in New Zealand. The major parties did not stand candidates against Independents where the Independents were regarded as aligned to that major party. Nelson's Harry Attmore is the best known of such Independents, but National­aligned Independents were elected in Mataura, Egmont and Wellington.

The bigger worry is that Maurice Williamson's 1994 scenario might come true, with NZ First evolving into a National­aligned electorate party, able to gain a significant number of overhang seats on a semi­permanent basis, thanks to National not standing candidates against NZ First.

Meanwhile, back in Te Kuiti, Tuakau, and Greenlane, National may go for new candidates in its by­elections, so as to make each by-election more about party than about candidate. A new candidate would ensure that the new MP will be the winner of the by­election, and not some person dredged up from the nether reaches of the 1996 party list.

The problem for National is that that would be interpreted by Messrs Maxwell, Upton and Graham as a signal that each of them is disposable. It would lead to their retirements in 1999. This problem of slighting senior MPs in by­elections is unlikely to be a permanent feature of MMP parliaments, however. In future, most list MPs in the major parties will be junior rather than senior caucus members. Junior MPs will generally expect to become electorate MPs in a general election, after having served an apprenticeship as a list MP.

{ This document is:                  http://www.oocities.org/Athens/Delphi/3142/krf34-strategy-mmp.html

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