Last night, on the eve of the election as citizens in Northland and Whanganui prepared to vote, they faced a shock- especially those on the right. The Liberal Party began sending out emails and leaflets telling their voters in Whanganui to vote for dyljam, the Reform candidate, over PineappleCrusher_, the National candidate whom the Liberals had backed and campaigned for during the majority of the campaign. They claimed it was the only way to ensure Whanganui didn’t get a Greens MP. But this was quickly followed by Reform’s leader, Winston Wilhelmus, endorsing the Liberal candidate in Northland, Kingethan15- despite having their own candidate, RubenTWO. They couldn’t pull him, as electoral law prohibited it. This created a similar situation to elections in Ōhariu and Epsom, where National stood their own candidate while endorsing the United Future or ACT candidate, respectively. However, so late into the campaign and after both parties had mounted a strong campaign and made their allegiance known- this seems like nothing but political horse-trading. Who will win Whanganui? Despite this, dyljam is still the favourite and will most likely become the winner- but don’t underestimate hk-laichar, the Greens candidate. In Northland, it’s much closer. Much of Reform’s rise is correlated with Labour’s drop, and with a 4% margin between Kingethan15 of the Liberals and WillShakespeare99 of Labour, Reform’s 16% is a force to be reckoned with. Will Reform voters listen to Winston Wihelmus? Will they vote for RubenTWO? Or could they return the seat to Labour hands?
留言