Who, why and what next: Key election analysed

A new book analyses the National Party's journey from the doldrums to the corridors of power and its likely long term political prospects.

KEY TO VICTORY: The general election of 2008
ed. by Stephen Levine and Nigel Roberts
Victoria University Press, $50, pbk

It is an old truism that governments lose elections rather than oppositions win them.

That was certainly true of the 2008 general election.

Since 1990 there have been seven general elections and after each one a collection of essays on different aspects has been published by Victoria University in Wellington.

They are textbook analyses and commentaries on who won and why, written for academics, students and political junkies.

Key to Victory is filled with statistics, charts and graphs.

It contains copious comments on the political parties by party insiders.

In fact, this is a journal of record, with all the lack of readability that usually entails.

The analyses and commentaries are not very interesting, for the most part.

The interest in politics generally comes from newsiness and new interpretations.

The result of the 2008 election had been predicted accurately for months in advance, and for reasons that were both prescient and cogent, and have been well chewed over since.

It was clear that Labour had no hope and, in fact, it did surprisingly well.

Helen Clark herself did surprisingly well.

For months many vehicles had been driving on South Island roads with the bumper sticker "DITCH THE BITCH".

She was fighting her fifth election as party leader, and in 1996 her main opponent had been a Labour Party colleague, Mike Moore.

Voter fatigue would have set in by 2008 even if everything in her third term had gone according to plan.

It didn't.

Labour had become terminally unpopular for many reasons - the hubris of long-term office, the foreshore and seabed debate, the smacking issue, the Electoral Finance Act, and many more.

During the campaign National was told over and over again that the election was its to lose.

Perhaps it was concern about seeming overconfident, but National did not risk campaigning on the issues.

Instead, it relied on a charm offensive fronted by its charming leader.

The title of this book is very apt.

Indeed, it might seem that National is still relying on charm rather than addressing the issues.

National assumed office when the world economy was in a mess - which is hardly New Zealand's fault - but charming everyone does not fix it.

Barack Obama's charm offensive in the United States seems to be wearing out and, although Labour's hopes that John Key's charm offensive will also wear out have remained unfulfilled, the same must happen here eventually.

Voters in New Zealand blame the Government, eventually.

They always do.

Perhaps the world economy will turn up in time to save John Key and National.

The year 2008 might, however, come to be seen in retrospect as the last hurrah of the third parties.

Only the Greens and the Maori Party survive as significant forces in Parliament, and neither has grown or progressed as it had hoped, while New Zealand First and Winston Peters died as they had lived - by the sword.

New Zealand has effectively reverted to a two-party Parliament, which makes the planned referendum on electoral law seem rather passe.

Key to Victory has a full section on voting reform and does full justice to the likely fate of the third parties.

Review by Oliver Riddell

Oliver Riddell is a Wellington writer.