KEY POINTS:
For Winston Peters, the writing was literally on the wall.
By noon yesterday, supporters had hung placards on the wall of New Zealand First's Tauranga election reception thanking their leader for past achievements, such as the SuperGold card for pensioners and Tauranga's toll-free harbour bridge.
And while the
mood was chipper and upbeat, there were no signs of congratulations.
With Peters suffering a huge defeat to National's Simon Bridges, Peters needed New Zealand First to cross the 5 per cent threshold.
Late last night that looked almost impossible, and Peters had yet to arrive at the Armitage Hotel to thank his supporters.
Peters had shunned the media all day, refusing to reveal where he would vote and going to ground in suburbia.
Avoiding his favourite haunts along Tauranga's Strand, he was lying low at businessman Tommy Gear's million-dollar home in Otumoetai.
Immaculately dressed in suit and tie, as always, Peters was chauffeured by Gear in a late model silver Mercedes.
Herald on Sunday attempts to trail Peters to the polling booth - later confirmed as Pillans Primary School - were thwarted by a couple of deft U-turns.
In contrast, Bridges cut a relaxed figure, lunching with friends in the Red Square, voting with wife Natalie at Otumoetai College and strolling around the shops at Bayfair. Tipped as a future Cabinet Minister, the 32-year-old said last night he was hopeful of a "fresh start for Tauranga", "a fresh start with new vision".
Whether this is the end for NZ First remains to be seen.
John Rowles opened their campaign with a cover of Frank Sinatra's My Way and, like the legendary crooner, the party has always been a one-man band.
So the demise of Winston Peters and NZ First's expected failure to reach the 5 per cent threshold may have doomed the party he fathered 15 years ago to political oblivion.
If the party is out of Parliament, the as the end comes political aspirations of the likes of Ron Mark - an MP since 1996 - are over unless they regroup and relaunch for 2011.
Once touted as a potential heir to Peters, the tough-talking Mark refused to be drawn on whether the dream was over for NZ First _ and if it could survive without its talisman.
With a reputation as a tenacious battler _ forged by the Winebox Inquiry _ Peters led NZ First to gain 17 seats in the first MMP election in 1996 to hold the balance of power.
Riding high on the party's success, NZ First formed a coalition government with National with Peters appointed as deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer.
But NZ First stocks plummeted when Peters was sacked by PM Jenny Shipley in 1998 and was embroiled in the "UndieGate" scandal - where NZ First MP Tukuroirangi Morgan was exposed as spending thousands of taxpayers' dollars on expensive clothes, including an $89 pair of underpants.
In the next election, voters did not forgive Peters for jumping in and out of bed with National.
NZ First was mauled in 1999, when it slumped to just 4.3 per cent support and only hauled back into Parliament by Peters who won Tauranga by a mere 63 votes.
Somehow, three years later, NZ First was back with 10 per cent of the party vote, riding high on the blue-rinse brigade that supported Peters' crackdown on crime and immigration.
