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NEW ZEALAND
Maori Party Holds Key After Hung Poll Verdict
By Bob Burton
CANBERRA , Sep 19, 2005 (IPS) - After winning four seats in Saturday's elections, the Maori Party, formed last year as a voice for New Zealand's indigenous people, may determine whether the incumbent Labour Party can form a minority government.
The leader of the Maori Party, Tariana Turia, has flagged that, over the next two weeks, she and her three new colleagues will convene hui (consultation meetings) with supporters, around the country, to determine which of the major parties they should back or any at all.
What is clear at the moment is that the possibility of the Maori Party backing the National Party, which has attacked Maori-specific policies as "separatism", is exceedingly unlikely.
Until late last year, Turia was one of the Labour Party parliamentarians elected to the seven seats specifically set aside for Maori representation.
But after the Labour government pushed through legislation to overturn a court decision upholding Maori claims over the foreshore and seabed, she resigned and formed the Maori Party.
For the Maori Party, the price of supporting a minority Labour government could be concessions on Maori rights to the foreshore and funding for Maori-specific education, health and welfare programmes. The Maori Party also wants protected the seven parliamentary seats, reserved for Maori members, which the conservative National Party would like to see abolished.
As counting ended on Saturday, the Labour Party, led by Helen Clark, had won only one seat more than the National Party and faced substantial challenges in mustering a coalition of minor parties in order to form a minority government.
Clark acknowledged the political divisions created in the election campaign. ''It has been a hard-fought election that has exposed a lot of divisions in New Zealand society and as well as forming a stable government, my desire is to address how we can start healing some of those wounds.''
Senior Lecturer in the School of Government at Victoria University, Chris Eichbaum, sees a clear split in the election results. "This is an election where provincial, rural New Zealanders said one thing and metropolitan New Zealanders said something else. It could well be that it was the race issue that had more traction there, sort of urban liberals versus rural conservatives," he said.
Under New Zealand's Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system, each voter casts two ballots-one for a local constituency member and a second for their preferred party list.
If a party's candidate wins an electorate seat, the party also wins additional seats proportionate to its nationwide vote. Alternatively, if it doesn't win any constituency seats it can gain representation if it polls over the minimum five percent threshold.
After the 2002 elections, Clark ran a minority government comprising the Progressive Alliance led by Jim Anderton and the centrist United Future Party. However, in Saturday's election all three lost seats and can now only command 54 seats taken together-well short of the necessary 62.
During the election campaign, Clark said that she would include the Greens in a minority government but that the Maori Party would be the "last cab off the rank".
While the New Zealand Greens just scraped over the minimum threshold with 5.07 percent of the vote to win six seats, their chances of being included in a formal coalition appear to have dimmed. Asked at a media conference on Sunday about a possible role for the Green Party, Clarke downplayed the suggestion. "There tends to be too much focus on coalition arrangements," she said.
Clark's initial preference seems to be to gain support from the centrist United Future party and the populist, anti-immigration New Zealand First party, at least on parliamentary votes of confidence and money bills.
Complicating her negotiations is the insistence of the Leader of United Future, Peter Dunne, that he will not support Labour if they are in coalition with the Greens.
While Clark may not include the Greens in a coalition or make concessions to the Maori Party, she will still need support from one of these on any 'no-confidence' motions and budget bills to stay in power.
Underpinning Clark's strategy is the recognition that a coalition, with a wafer-thin majority, provides no buffer against unforeseen developments, such as a resignation and subsequent by-election or a defection.
Clark will also have an eye on Labour's uncertain prospects at the next election. The National Party's aggressive advocacy of reversing Maori- specific policies and tax-cuts, which would benefit higher-income earners, succeeded in boosting the party's representation from 27 seats to 49.
Ironically, National Party leader, Don Brash, would only be able to assemble a majority in the unlikely event that he wins support from the Maori Party.
One remaining uncertainty is over whether the Oct.1 announcement of the 218,000 'special' votes, cast by people away from home and overseas, will alter the current distribution of seats. The Greens hover perilously close to the five percent threshold, while several seats have been decided by only several hundred votes in the close election.
Faced with a potentially unstable coalition, it is likely that conservative elements in the business community will press for changes to the electoral system.
"Whether this would enjoy sufficient weight of support to actually
result in some revisiting of the electoral system, I doubt it," Eichbaum said. "But there will be a debate, which is one of the reasons there is a deal of caution now about the process of forming a government to ensure it passes the test of public legitimacy." (END)
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