There has been a great deal of disgruntlement about the new Labour-led government being a “coalition of losers”. Some feel that because it is a government that doesn’t include the largest party (National, which won 44% of the vote) that it is in some way illegitimate. Richard Prebble even wrote a column calling the new government an undemocratic coup.
A very insightful response to this has been delivered on Twitter by Michael Appleton (@michelappleton). Below are his tweets, republished in the order they were tweeted.
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I see Richard Prebble has called @jacindaardern's coming ascension to the Prime Ministership a "coup" and "undemocratic". 1/
That's pretty strong stuff - and has been published by @nzherald, our largest city's daily newspaper: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11935125 …. 2/
Generally, when a coup d'état happens, the international community expresses outrage and calls for fresh elections. 3/
I said before @winstonpeters made his decision that I hoped the legitimacy of the resultant govt wld not be called into question. Alas. 4/
.@pmbillenglish deserves praise for his gracious concession speech, including his explicit endorsement of the legitimacy of the outcome. 5/
It's a shame others are not as affirming of our democratic system as PM English is. 6/
Let me repeat: any govt which commands the support of a majority of MPs is by definition legitimate. 7/
But a separate consideration is: how large a proportion of voters supported the party or parties that won power? 8/
Arguably, the larger the proportion of voters that supported the party or parties taking office, the stronger its/their mandate. 9/
The three parties making up/supporting the Ardern Administration received a majority of votes cast in this year's election (50.4pc). 10/
I just looked back at the 27 NZ elections in our National/Labour era (ie since National was formed in 1936). 11/
Turns out the Ardern Govt will represent a higher proportion of Kiwi voters than ~2/3s of its predecessors during this period. 12/
In that period, the NZ govt that represented the highest proportion of voters was formed after the 1938 election (Savage, 55.8pc). 13/
The govt that represented the lowest proportion of voters was formed after the 1993 election (Bolger, 35.1pc). 14/
As this table shows, our incoming govt comes in ninth among our 27 govts since 1938, when ranked by % of votes secured. 15/
Incidentally, the govts Mr Prebble served in are 14th (48.0pc) & 24th (43.0pc) on this list - well below the incoming Ardern Govt. 16/
Put another way, after the 1984 and 1987 elections, 57pc and 52pc of voters had not voted for the Lange-led Govts that resulted. 17/
I get that some people are nostalgic for an earlier FPP era in our politics, with its "simpler" and "cleaner" electoral outcomes. 18/
But let's be clear what they're being nostalgic for. 19/
They yearn for an era when less than 40pc support cld enable a single political party to form a govt on its own. 20/
And they yearn for an era when 60pc+ of voters cld be delivered a govt they didn't support. 21/
So, please let's not pretend the FPP era of NZ politics was more democratic than ours is. I reckon, on balance, the reverse is the case. 22/
And let's not question the legitimacy - using "coup" & "undemocratic" - of a govt produced by our well functioning electoral system. 23/23
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I tweeted last night about Richard Prebble's attack on the legitimacy of our incoming govt - and by extension MMP. 1/
Some of the replies noted that it's unusual for a party to score as highly as National did this year (44.4pc) but not win power. 2/
That's true. Since 1938, only three times previously has a major party scored more than 44.4pc but failed to achieve govt. 3/
They were: National 1946, 48.4pc; Labour 1949, 47.2pc; and Labour 1951, 45.8pc. 4/
But, unlike 2017, in all these previous cases the other major party scored even higher. 5/
So it's correct to say that 2017 is the first time that a party which a) got highest vote share and b) got 44pc+ did not form govt. 6/
In 1978 and 1981, Labour got more votes than National and did not form govt. But their vote share was ~40pc both times. 7/
It's totally reasonable to note that the ~44pc of voters who opted for National this year will be disappointed their party's not in govt. 8/
But it's very common for just under half of voters to be disappointed because their party/ies were shut out of power. That's democracy. 9/
Indeed, far more voters were disappointed (in these terms) in all of our post-WW2 FPP elections than have been disappointed this year. 10/
This table shows the collective support of the significant parties to miss out on govt in our 14 elections from 1954-1993. 11/
I categorised as significant the following: Labour, National, Social Credit, Values/Greens, NZ Party, Alliance/New Labour, NZ First. 12/
The table shows that in 13/14 elections, the "losing parties" shut out of govt collectively secured a majority of votes. 13/
In 6/14, the losing parties secured more than 55pc support, and in 1993 (the worst case) they secured 61pc support. 14/
That's a lot of disappointed voters whose parties were shut out of govt - and far more than is the case in 2017. 15/
That's by design, of course. The whole point of MMP is that a majority of voters can (generally) secure a Parliamentary majority. 16/
The proportion of voters in MMP elections disappointed their party is not in power should therefore not exceed 50pc very often/by much. 17/
That, for me, should be the essence of democracy: rule by representatives of a majority of voters. 18/18
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Have heard lots of conversations this weekend about who actually won the election. 1/ #Decision17
In a straightforward sense, Labour, NZF and the Greens won the election as they will wield govt power over next three years. 2/
But some clearly feel National "won" the election because it outpolled Labour by some distance. 3/
On the question of which "side" had more voter support, I've said many times I think the forces for change & status quo fought out a draw 4/
And/but I think it's worth looking back at our 5th National Govt which served for 9 years w/3 support parties: Act, United & Maori Party. 5/
During its tenure, the 5th National Government faced three significant parties in opposition: Labour, NZ First and the Greens. 6/
National and its support parties collectively won 51.8pc support in 2008, 50.4pc in 2011, 48.3pc in 2014 & 46.2pc in 2017. 7/
Labour, NZ First and the Greens collectively won 44.8pc support in 2008, 45.1pc in 2011, 44.5pc in 2014 & 50.4pc in 2017. 8/
So, National and its support parties (collectively) suffered a slow but steady decline in support over its nine years in power. 9/
Labour, NZF and Greens are about to govern NZ cos, for the 1st time since 2005, they won the support of a majority of voters in 2017. 10/
National/Act/United/Maori Party went from ~4 percentage points ahead of Labour/NZF/Greens in 2014 to ~4 points behind them this year. 11/
That swing of voters from National and its support parties to the three opposition parties is what led to a change of govt. 12/
To regain power in 2020, National/A/U/MP will need to get its support back above Labour/NZF/G - or convince NZF to switch sides. 13/13
