Mr Harawira acknowledged this morning what he told Mana members three weeks ago that he had little appetite for another term in Parliament as Mana's sole MP.
"If I went back in and it was just me, then I probably would have resigned because it's a tough enough job doing it just by yourself."
However he qualified that by saying he would have seen out the term and tried to build the party in other ways.
He said the tie up with Dotcom's Internet was a risk worth taking to try and increase Mana's presence in Parliament.
Mana and the Internet Party's alliance would go the formal review process within a few weeks as per their agreement. He had been in discussions with Dotcom about working together in the future on IT scholarships for young Maori.
However, Mr Harawira said Dotcom's ongoing involvement in Internet Mana's election campaign, which Dotcom himself acknowledged was "poison", did not help it.
"I just think that in hindsight his presence during the campaign could have been managed better but I certainly don't blame him for the loss, and I think that the mainstream media went out of their way to persecute him, and we were persecuted by association.''
Specifically Mr Harawira said Dotcom's 'Moment of Truth'' could have been better timed.
"It probably would have been better to have it raised a lot earlier, or perhaps after the campaign so that we could focus on the campaign.
"It would have been better if we had more strategic focus on the election itself, rather than on events. There's a whole lot of things that could have been done better, but I'm comfortable that the risk we took was a risk worth taking to try to grow the audience, to try to grow our numbers. We weren't successful but would I do it again? In large part, absolutely."
