If David can’t win 2014, the ABCs will assassinate him. His options of being a political footnote or a political legacy is totally dependent on winning 2014. With such a sword dangling above him, he needs to think out every strategy available for him to win, with that in mind, it’s time the left progressive vote got serious about using MMP tactically.
When National have public cups of tea with ACT in Epsom and United Future in Ohariu, does anyone honestly believe they stay up at night concerned they have degraded Democracy in any way shape or form?
Of course they don’t.
The Right use MMP to win and the Left hold their nose and claim with false moral conviction that such arrangements are beneath them and the voters.
What twaddle.
If Labour and the Greens and MANA are serious about dethroning the most popular PM in recent times they must play every advantage available to them and proudly declare these are being employed to rid the country of a Government that is highly corrosive to the majority if its citizens.
They actually have to work together and make MMP tactical and be very open with the public that that is EXACTLY what they are doing.
Voters have two votes – make that work best to get National out, or sit on the Opposition benches for another 3 years while Key rips away the last shreds of an egalitarian NZ.
If National sense ACT, Maori Party or United Future are at risk of getting kicked out, watch how quickly John Key will have a hot milo with Colin Craig in Rodney in the first week of next years general election.
This is politics and if the Opposition really believe Key is as detrimental as he is, then some solidarity is going to have to be manifested for the greater good.
It wasn’t until Helen Clark was invited to the 1998 Alliance conference before the 1999 election that the excitement and momentum of the entire left family together built and surged to victory. I spoke at that conference in ’98 and remember the emotional outpouring of a re-united family and the energy that created. It gave the impression of a genuine Government in waiting. Imagine next year the force of having the entire left family, Labour-Green-MANA altogether under one roof in the last week of the election after a clearly defined strategy of using MMP tactically in the efforts to remove the Government.
It would be a resurgence of the left side of the political spectrum that should surprise no one when you consider the gap of inequality in NZ has climbed faster than at any other time and is more extreme than at any other time. What has surprised the pundits and political establishment is how untapped and vast that left wing vote is with the landslide win to Cunliffe and the 6.8% jump he just achieved.
So how should Labour use MMP to win the 2014 election. 3 parties, 3 different strategies.
Greens:
Every mainstream media Pundit keeps calling for Cunliffe to start Green bashing to win Green Party votes. This would be a bewilderingly stupid idea for the following reasons.
Whenever I get really viciously attacked on social media, it’s usually not the right wing or Labour Party supporters who are the most savage, it’s Green Party supporters. The middle class intellectual snobbery of some Green Party supporters are about as sociable as a militant vegan in a battery cage chicken cafe. Their ability to talk down to and demean would open up a vast front of a thousand social media knife fights that would set Labour Party supporter against Green Supporter. Because the Greens do social media far better than Labour, their Emerald Stormtroopers would riot on Facebook & Twitter if Cunliffe unleashed Shane Jones on them in an election year.
This is energy and blood and treasure that can be far better utilized elsewhere.
It would be a smarter idea to view a strong Green vote as a strength rather than as a threat, not only because it is a far easier path to winning 2014, but that going on the attack is going to provoke a response by impassioned Green Party faithful to carry out a low grade online social media guerrilla war that would make Government (if the Opposition won) a daily bloodbath. You could be certain Whaleoil would be more than happy to screen-shot-o-rama the best daily examples of online unity homicide. Russel Norman could barely contain his own activists from defacing Opposition Billboards in the last election, a full frontal attack by Labour would unleash a response not even the leadership could control.
The latest poll showed a slight increase in Green support with Labour jumping 6.8% suggesting Labour is gaining from those who hadn’t bothered voting by suddenly waking them from the Shearer induced apathy-coma and pulling them off the fencepost. Labour aren’t increasing by raiding Green vote, there’s no value in attacking them.
The political truth is that it is time for the Greens to be a considerable force within Cabinet, and that is a reality Cunliffe needs to embrace. Green MPs are incredibly talented and their solutions to some of the big problems NZ faces are truly visionary and they deserve their place at the decision making table.
The Greens and Labour need to look at certain electorates to see how best to use MMP tactically, not just because it will help win the 2014 election but because it will actually show the members of both Parties that solidarity is required.
If Cunliffe buys Charles Chauvel a one way ticket back to Ohariu, would it really kill the democratic process if Gareth Hughes didn’t stand in the hope a combined effort would topple Dunne? Are the Greek forefathers of Democracy really going to roll in their grave if Denise Roche doesn’t stand in Central Auckland to dethrone Nikki Kaye?
In 2011 Charles won 12 965 votes and Dunne won 14 357. Gareth received 2 160. In Auckland Central, Nikki Kaye won 15 038 votes while Jacinda Ardern won 14 321, Denise took 2 903. If working together to defeat the Government and the Government’s allies is the goal, here are two places Labour and the Greens could prove that.
Symbolic compromise like that in a few electorate seats would do more for unity and the perception of a Government in waiting than any other single thing. The justifier being that if they can’t work together for the best interests of the Country before the elections, how can they do it afterwards?
Such negotiations and discussions will also strengthen the necessary working relationships they will both need to adopt to survive the bumpy road of Government and that is especially important in this case because this won’t be a huge party plus tail, this will be a huge party plus leg. The size of the Greens will make this a more unique working relationship, and the longer they have to practice working together before the real deal, the better.
MANA
Labour have an opportunity to discuss a deal with MANA that allows for a chance to close down another Government ally in the form of the Maori Party. If Labour didn’t stand candidates in certain Maori electorates and MANA didn’t stand candidates in other Maori electorates, both would gain and Labour would eliminate another Government ally while increasing the overall total majority for the left.
NZ First
If NZ First are not needed to be the majority then a smart move would be to look at a broader coalition relationship by offering Winston Peters the Trade Negotiation portfolio and send him off to America to shut down the TPPA in the name of national sovereignty. If he is required for the majority, then he will most likely choose National over the Greens and Labour. Winston would reason that it was better to be small fish in a relationship of two rather than the smallest fish in a relationship of three.
If David Cunliffe wants to win 2014, he must walk up to the very edges of the rules of MMP. I hate to use an America’s Cup analogy, but that’s what Oracle did with their automatic gadgetry and it won them the America’s Cup.
Labour need to consider taking a leaf out of the winners book.