A sixth candidate has joined the race for the Hastings/Havelock North ward seat in the Hastings byelection, and she's running to create possibilities and success.
Alezix Heneti is about as far removed from a pale, stale, male candidate as you can get - she's a bright, high-energy, independent 58-year-old woman who has made the move back home from the big smoke of Auckland, after 38 years away.
The daughter of long-time successful Hawke's Bay shearing gang contractor John Whaene Karaitiana and Huia Pere, she said moving back to the Bay had not been on her to-do list until recently.
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Rather it was the idea of her first-cousin Kim Thomson (nee Neho), to whom Ms Heneti has been an unpaid caregiver for the last 10 years, the pair now grateful to have finally got a rental house in Havelock North, after 15 weeks of searching.