New Zealand has a habit, but not a rule, of electing the party with its preferred prime minister as leader. From left: Sir Bill English, Sir John Key, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, Dame Jacinda Ardern, Helen Clark, and Jim Bolger. Photo / Supplied
New Zealand has a habit, but not a rule, of electing the party with its preferred prime minister as leader. From left: Sir Bill English, Sir John Key, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, Dame Jacinda Ardern, Helen Clark, and Jim Bolger. Photo / Supplied
Opinion by Stewart Forsyth
OPINION
There is a chance that Christopher Luxon, who is not doing brilliantly in “preferred PM” ratings, will lead the next government.
This result would defy the trend of seven of the past eight elections, where the more preferred candidate for PM fulfilled the prophecy of the polls, and ledthe new government.
This could confirm conventional wisdom, albeit in an unconventional way.
Research into political psychology indicates that there is more than alignment in political ideology in play when voters choose their preferred leader. Alessandro Nai, of the University of Amsterdam, surveyed 22 elections in different countries and found this alignment – the belief that your candidate will drive the agenda you subscribe to – is important to voters’ choice of candidate. The next most important factor was how “agreeable” (think, “sympathetic, warm, trusting”) the candidate was.
This is a little, but not very, complicated. If you, the voter, are disillusioned with politics (believing for example, “most politicians do not care about the people”), you are likely to favour a challenging, less agreeable candidate (”disagreeable” sounds so judgmental), think “competitive, critical, quarrelsome”. Someone who can shake things up without being bothered about people being disconcerted.
If you are comfortable with the current political scene, you are going for the non-disruptive, steady, let’s get along together, the more agreeable candidate.
Luxon, despite attempts to portray him as having a socially conservative agenda, has been clear that he is not a radical in this space (for example saying he would resign rather than restrict women’s access to abortion).
He would be seen by voters as particularly diligent, rational, and perhaps just a little too prepared – leading to the perception of a lack of authentic spontaneity in relating to people. He is not “disagreeable” in the sense of going on the attack. He did express his concern about New Zealanders in general, in the sense that they were “wet and whiny”. But this can be interpreted as his frustration that they are not yet on board with the Luxon programme of getting back on the right track rather than targeting individual Kiwis for being the enemy of such progress.
Luxon can get votes from those who see him as the nice guy who will get things back where they should be, without too much disruption.
Who is going to get the votes from those who want disruption, who believe it is time for some aggro? You can probably see where this is going.
Both David Seymour and Winston Peters communicate that they are in touch with the discomfort felt by those who consider they have been left out by the approaches of the dominant parties.
Are they seen as rough enough to drive the agenda that will appeal to these outsiders?
Seymour has led a remarkable resurgence of Act. Is he sufficiently down in the “agreeable” stakes to be seen as a credible disruptor by the disenchanted? He is competitive – from his maiden speech to Parliament – “We won, you lost.” He can come across even to people in the Act camp as “low in EQ”. Potentially Seymour could be a lightning rod for those who want a leader capable of shaking things up.
Stewart Forsyth.
Winston Peters appears to delight in upsetting the sensibilities of the woke. He campaigned in previous elections against immigrants (who were taking Kiwi jobs). He also deliberately set out to be a “handbrake for silly [Labour] ideas.”
Both are credible contenders for the voice of the alienated, having demonstrated they can do critical and quarrelsome, or “less agreeable”.
Doing some simple arithmetic, and working from recent preferred PM polling (July Newshub Reid Research poll – Luxon achieved 16 per cent, Seymour 11 per cent, and Peters 4 per cent); Luxon and Seymour get to a combined PPM rating of 27 per cent. Luxon and Peters get a total PPM rating of 20 per cent. Do these combinations beat the competing offering from the left?
At present, Luxon trails Chris Hipkins 16 per cent to 24 per cent. But the Luxon+Seymour combination edges Hipkins. The beauty of the Luxon+Seymour combo is that they bring together different constituencies (centrists and those more “way out”) to achieve dominance. The danger of this match is the tension between the conservatives who want steady, incremental initiatives and those who are unhappy with the current trajectory and want radical change.
Unfortunately for those of the left thinking of a similar combo approach, neither James Shaw nor Marama Davidson, of the Greens, gets into the PPM ratings. If we add Chloe Swarbrick’s 1.6 per cent in these PPM ratings, the Hipkins+Swarbrick PPM combo is close to 26 per cent, and close to the 27 per cent of Luxon+Seymour.
If further evidence was needed – this indicates a close election. Meanwhile, we can look forward to seeing how either National or Labour manage their attempts to bring together a coalition with their potentially more stroppy partners.
Stewart Forsyth is a leadership coach and writes a Substack newsletter.
