Mana Party leader Hone Harawira broke his media silence last night, saying he remains comfortable with the work he did with Kim Dotcom in a political alliance which came close to bringing Internet Party leader Laila Harre and other Internet-Mana candidates into Parliament.
After being tipped out of Parliament when Labour's Kelvin Davis beat him for the Te Tai Tokerau seat in Saturday's election, Mr Harawira has yet to officially concede and told media on Monday that he had "decided to spend the time up until Declaration Day [October 4] talking with the Mana whanau before making any formal statements.
"So please don't feel offended when I ignore your questions between now and then. I will be available after Declaration Day. Kapai?"
But last night he told Campbell Live he wasn't yet ready to say whether he had any regrets about tying his fortunes to Dotcom - a move that was widely regarded as having cost him his seat.
"That too I guess is something that I want to have a longer talk with Laila about and I'll save those comments until after that. I owe Laila that, I owe Kim that.
"So I'm just holding off on those comments until after I've had that korero, that's the right thing to do. I haven't had the chance to catch up with Kim and I need to have a korero one on one so I look forward to that."
He said he hadn't seen Dotcom's speech on Saturday in which the controversial internet entrepreneur apologised to him for costing him his seat by associating his "damaged brand" with Mana.
"Honestly, I feel really comfortable about the work that we've done and in the end when it became obvious that a whole lot of other parties were just standing against poor little old me, [it] became obvious that we weren't going to be able to pull that off." Asked whether the problem was that other parties were standing against Dotcom, rather than him, Mr Harawira did not voice any regrets. "Be that as it may, I am where I am, I've taken the decisions that I've taken and I'm comfortable with them."
While he appeared shaken on Saturday night as Mr Davis took a lead over him in polling, Mr Harawira said he wasn't "heartbroken" on the night.
"When I got up to the hall and my three mokos jumped all over me, I thought, 'Oh yeah, that's where the real world is'."
He wouldn't rule out another tilt at Parliament in the future.
"You never know, there's some really good people out there. I just need to again talk to the Mana whanau all around the country. The fight never dies, the flame never dies, you just have to keep moving."