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November 17, 2008
Kiwi system bears fruit
Under the radar here of all but the hardened election junkies and politicos (everyone else was still basking in the Obama victory), New Zealand held its general election on 8 November.
It was a change election too, with long-time Prime Minister Helen Clark and her Labour Party losing power. The centre-right National Party, under John Key, were the big winners of the night. So we have another example of a PR system that does what its critics says it can't: "kick the b*ggers out".
And turnout, whilst down slightly, was still at a very credible 78.7%. The election result had widely been predicted, which is one possible reason for the lower turnout. No matter what the system, if it isn't seen a close election, there is always the risk of people not being as interested or voting in as great a numbers. But the Additional Member System is likely to have kept things more competitive, with more seats in play and votes counting than otherwise would have been the case.
The National Party won 45% of the vote, which gave them a healthy and reasonable 59 seats out of 122. Almost but not quite a majority. It would probably have been perfectly possible to form a minority government, as Alex Salmond has done in Scotland on the back of fairly similar numbers. But instead the NZ Nationals have formed an oversized coalition. They have brought in 3 coalition partners to get up to 70 seats, where one partner would have done easily enough, and given the smaller parties quite generous treatment in ministerial posts by the sound of it. As my colleague Lewis Baston muses "coalition theory would find this difficult to explain I think. But I suppose it is one way round the 'small party as kingmaker' problem - that the government can afford to call the bluff of any one of its coalition allies if they become uncooperative."
NB. In the run up to the election I posted some thoughts on this blog about the coalition process in New Zealand.
Posted by malcolmclark on November 17, 2008
