Election 2020: Tommy Wilson on the fall and rise of the Māori Party in Waiariki

Rawiri Waititi could be the only Māori Party candidate to hold a seat in Parliament after the party was ousted in 2017. Photo / Supplied

OPINION: If a week is a long time in politics, then a weekend is shorter than the gap between the fingers and the ball of a bungled try in a test match.

And the comparisons between polling booths and rolling mauls do not end in a draw as they did last week.

Here in the Bay there has been plenty of politics and test match rugby to follow this last weekend, and arriving at the Te Kaha Beach Resort on Saturday night, the crowd was as vocal as Eden Park. You could sense an upset.

It was a matter of "hold on to your pōtae (hat), whānau" in a two-horse race between incumbent Tamati Coffey and the "cuzzy from the coast", Rawiri Waititi.

While the rest of the country was pretty predictable with Labour in a sweeping victory and the Act party as a pain in the proverbial posterior for Labour, the Greens - like the Māori Party - will start growing like an organic garden. And sadly, like a regal racehorse ready for retirement, Winston will be put out to pasture.

Not so the Māori Party.

As recent as last weekend, the Māori Party's pōtae-wearing, charismatic politician has been shooting from the hip and the lip, and for those who have showed up and listened, as I have done at the many marae he has spoken in, it is easy to understand why the gap between Coffey and Waititi started closing faster than a Wallaby backline.

Labour candidate for Waiariki, Tamati Coffey, on election night. Photo / Andrew Warner

Sitting on the sideline watching this battle of the bros unfold in the Te Kaha hotel on Saturday night, where Waititi held his election hui, was history in the making. His win must hold a certain comforting consolation for one retired Māori politician now domiciled as the chief executive of Te Wananga o Aotearoa.

As a columnist, I covered the last election at Waiteti Marae in Rotorua with 250 others, in what was supposed to be a victory speech by four-time winner of the Waiariki seat, Te Ururoa Flavell.

In one of the biggest upsets of the election, Flavell lost his 12-year hold on the Waiariki seat, trailing Labour's Tamati Coffey by about 1300 votes.

It was one of the saddest events I have ever covered, a scene of total disbelief as his own seem to have deserted him when he had worked so tirelessly for his people.

Fast forward three years to this last weekend and I can't help but feeling the upset, if not utu, in the air for those who walked away from Te Ururoa in Waiariki and walked back to the Māori Party, when they walked into the polling booths last week.

So, across the country, why the sea change back to the Māori Party?

Former Māori Party leader Te Ururoa Flavell is comforted by his wife Erana at Waiteti Marae in Rotorua in the last election as results came in. Photo / File

In my view, with Rawiri Waititi being the new face of Māori politics, it is because many first-time voters have bought into the newfound belief in "By Māori for Māori" and it's not just billboard talk, it is genuine kōrero on the kumara vine and in the whare.

Politics, like business and rugby, is a game, and Māori are quickly learning how to play the strategic game of politics.

Equally, the kapa haka community are culturally cool, young, savvy, socially connected, and they have connected with their fellow kapa haka performer Waititi.

At a regional kapa haka zoom hui held last week most groups had, or were, voting for him.

Next election, if Labour doesn't deliver for the Māori in this region, starting at the marae, it could well be again a two-horse race, or as Waititi said to me on Saturday night, "The paua must always go to the rock and that is what we the Māori Party have done in the Waiariki electorate."

There is a very well-worded proverb of local iwi, who are guardians of their beloved 26 marae.

Ki tai wiwi ki tai wawa – The tide goes out - the tide comes back in.

The same can be said for the rise and demise of our elected leaders and their political parties.