Chris Leitch drums up electoral support

Chris Leitch is the Democrats for Social Credit Whangarei electorate candidate for the general election. Photo/John Stone

Chris Leitch has been teaching people to foxtrot and rumba at his Whangarei dance studio for many years.

Now he is inviting voters in the district to tango to a tune different to the blues usually leading the victory boogie in the city after general elections.

Mr Leitch has been chosen as the Democrats for Social Credit candidate for the Whangarei electorate in the general election in September.

It's a long time since the 60-year-old was last on the hustings. But he did well in the Tamaki byelection in 1992, collecting 6649 votes for the Alliance. Although National's Clem Simich won with 7901 votes to replace the late sitting member and former Prime Minister Sir Robert Muldoon, Mr Leitch was a credible runner-up and far ahead of Labour candidate Vern Smith on 2121 votes.

Asked why he was again seeking election, Mr Leitch said it was because there was a desperate need for major change in the country. "The economy is worse now than it has ever been in my lifetime and the standard of living for the majority of people is the worst it's ever been."

Mr Leitch told the party meeting which selected him at the weekend that there would be several key themes to his election campaign. The first would be how the Government was selling the country into overseas hands through secret pacts like the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA).

He encouraged members to support national protest action against the TPPA by joining a rally starting at Clapham's Clock Museum in the Whangarei Town Basin at 1pm on March 29.

The second theme would be how Northland had been neglected by successive governments because they classed the region as safe National territory.

The Whangarei electorate was created for the 1972 election, and apart from a Labour win that year, it has been won by National in every election since.

"They have left us with the worst roads in the country, the highest unemployment and the highest crime rate," he said.