As 2018 closes up, New Zealand's general election on 19 January 2019 is rapidly approaching. And as the election gets closer and closer, there may well be party leaders at risk by being knifed by their colleagues. Who are they?
UncookedMeatloaf- Greens
Despite having only entered office at the start of this month, UncookedMeatloaf's time may well be limited. Having been first deposed by AnswerMeNow1 in May 2018, with his failure to win the Waikato by-election this month against a largely weaker National candidate, there's likely been whispers. A possible replacement for UncookedMeatloaf could be another runner-up in the Green Party leader election earlier this month, namely BHjr132, the MP for Waitematā and Minister for Health.
hk-laichar- Labour
Until very recently, Labour has been a struggling party. Red Saturday at the Fourth General Election meant that the party only just scraped in, with TheKirrix narrowly holding the seat of Southern. When hk-laichar defected to Labour, he became whip and later, party leader, and TheKirrix was ejected as an MP late in the term and replaced by Youmaton.
Both Labour MPs were re-elected at the Fifth General Election, but the party's influence rapidly increased during the Fifth Parliament, as they won the Northland by-election, merged with Reform New Zealand, and won an extra MP following Please_Dont_Yell's waka jump from Socialist Aotearoa, boosting them from 2 seats to a whopping 5. But Labour also lost what was expected to be an easy win in Christchurch, and the Reform-Labour merger was a large factor in the defection of AnswerMeNow1.
In the preferred PM stakes, hk-laichar does poorly, with less than half of his party wanting to see him as PM. The combined Green PM polling does not itself account for Labour's lagging in the PPM. So could this be reason to knife hk-laichar, replacing him with one of his deputies- perhaps Youmaton, MP for Southern- or Please_Dont_Yell, MP for Manukau? Or perhaps even a challenge from Reform could propel TheOWOTriangle to the executive.
Fresh3001- National
Unlike the others on this list, Fresh3001 is not a poor leader- he led the party to 2 electoral victories and has served 2 terms as Prime Minister. However, he took the top job out of mainly necessity, replacing an inactive and poor leader. The argument can certainly be made that it's time for some new blood in National, but it's unlikely that Fresh3001 would be forced out of office. If anything, he'd resign- the main reason he's on this list is because his party has some new talent who could concievably replace him, namely FinePorpoise, newly elected MP for Christchurch.
But when push comes to stab, will any of these party leaders actually be removed? Leadership spills create instability. It might be easier to stay with an unsatisfying leader for a few months over risking an electoral plunge. But politics is unpredictable. Some MPs might think the benefit outweighs the doubt. But will it, for any of these leaders? Let's wait and see.
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