Local body results no predictor of national election: observers

The election of left-leaning mayors in several cities does not mean Prime Minister John Key should start panicking, some political experts say.

"I think too much has been made of the 'should John Key be making his retirement plans?' - I think that's nonsense," Massey University local government expert Andy Asquith said.

He did not think the local body elections results could be used as a crystal ball to predict the general election result - "not in a million years".

Wellington's mayor-elect Celia Wade-Brown, a member of the Green Party, beat three-term mayor Kerry Prendergast by 176 votes after being behind by 40 votes on election day. She campaigned on environmental issues and supports having light rail in Wellington by 2020.

Her win followed left-leaning Len Brown's election as Auckland super city leader and in Dunedin victory to former television presenter David Cull - who is also considered to be a bit of a leftie.

Mr Asquith said New Plymouth's election of former Labour Party MP Harry Duynhoven might also be seen as part of the "left-wing tide".

However, he did not think the country's local body election results signalled any clear trend.

"People are jumping up and down about a leftward shift but I don't actually buy into that. I just think its local events that have shaped things," he said.

In Dunedin, issues about the controversial stadium and the level of debt shaped the election, he said.

In Wellington he put Ms Wade-Brown's victory down to her rival's "lacklustre" campaign.

"I don't think she won because she was green, I think she won because she wasn't Kerry Prendergast," he said.

He noted Ms Prendergast had blamed STV (single transferable voting) for her defeat.

"But it was the electoral system that was used last time and she won. It was the electoral system that she knew would be used when she entered the game," he said.

Mr Asquith added he was disappointed by low voter turnout around the country, which was a "sad state for local democracy".

It was great that 52 percent of people in Auckland had voted but that also meant 48 percent hadn't.

"I think in Auckland it was down to the fact that the centre-right didn't mobilise their supporters," he said.

Auckland city mayor John Banks had spent three years reinventing his image, but voters were too "sophisticated" to be taken in, he said.

Auckland University's political studies research fellow Graham Bush also dismissed the idea of a clear trend emerging in the wake of the local elections.

"I know the media want to brand elections as moving left or right or not moving at all (but) having studied local elections for many decades I would be a bit more circumspect than that," he said.

Local elections did not appear to be any predictor of how people would vote in general elections, Dr Bush said.

The only time he had spotted such a trend was after the 1974 local body elections, where a swing to the right was followed by National's victory, led by Robert Muldoon, in the 1975 general election.

However Otago University's Bryce Edwards, who specialises in New Zealand politics, said he noticed several other clear trends.

"There wasn't a lot of real discussion on policy or policy promises - it was all mainly about platitudes and managerial politics - 'I will do this better than the other candidate'," Dr Edwards said.

It reflected a general shift in New Zealand politics: "Ideology is out and personalities are in".

People no longer stood on a "party political ticket", such as Ms Wade-Brown who stood as an independent despite being a Green Party member.

"I'm not sure if I entirely approve of these very party political people pretending not to be party political. I don't really think it's that admirable," he said.

But Ms Prendergast's fall from grace came down to voter fatigue, he said.

"People were tired of her face, there's some similarities there with the fall of the Helen Clark Labour Government," Dr Edwards said.

Dr Edwards has also noticed an increase in "negative politics".

"Mostly local body elections are fairly tame affairs where everyone gets on quite well but it strikes me there is a bit more negative campaigning," he said.

In Invercargill, for example, there had been some "quite nasty stuff going on" between incumbent Tim Shadbolt and Suzanne Prentice: "There were quite a lot of rumours being spread and allegations being made. Some people found that quite distasteful."

Mr Banks and Mr Brown also tried to undercut their rivals during campaigning, he said.

He was undecided as to whether local elections results could be any predictor of general elections.

"The fact that (Mr) Brown won in Auckland - I think it will be a worry for the Government...

"It's kind of like the canary in the mine, Auckland does tend to favour parties that become more popular in the future."