As we are getting close to the election date of 19 September in New Zealand, election campaigning by all political parties has started gaining momentum. All parties small or big are coming up with their plans and election promises about how to make New Zealand a better place to live for all.

Some old stalwarts and smaller parties which are sitting below the threshold of 5 percent to make it to the beehive, may not succeed in these elections. If we have to trust the recently held survey results of TVNZ Colmar Brunton poll, for parties like New Zealand First, sitting at 2 percent should be the door shutting for them in Parliament this election. Green Party and Act Party both sitting at 5 percent are going to make it to Parliament due to their declared policies and stand on environment, housing, and employment etc. This election anyway is Jacinda Ardern’s election and there is no stopping for her especially post Corona crises. The successive survey results are only making her stronger and in this particular election she appears to be invincible.

As I have mentioned in my earlier write ups also, National Party and its leadership are to be blamed for their plight today. The toppling of Simon Bridges, so close to elections was the worst thing that anyone within the party could think of doing. The man responsible to do this job, Todd Muller, came out of the blue and never appeared to be in command or confident about the situations that surrounded him. People surely lose confidence in you if you do not have confidence in yourself especially when you are so close to be re-elected. I think we should sympathise with Judith Collins for not getting enough time to do the damage control, although even her opposition would dare not to challenge her ability or capabilities. She is a very tough task master, decisive and a disciplinarian to the core but perhaps lacks that magical charisma of Jacinda which goes with her ever since she got the top job.

If again, we go by the poll survey results, Labour Party can govern on it own as they are sitting at 53 percent support of voters which works out to around 70 seats in the Parliament. National Party has support of 32 percent voters which may not be enough for them to make even a coalition with Greens or Act parties and traditionally no party would want bid for losing horse. As it always goes, the results showing Labour as winner did not go well with National Party and its campaign Manager, Gerry Brownley has denounced the survey results as ‘rouge results’. On individual level also Jacinda’s popularity as a preferred Prime Minister is at 54 percent while Judith Collins got only 20 percent votes. Judith Collins however got an approval of 27 percent as National leader which is considerably higher than Simon Bridges or Todd Muller. It will be a herculean task for Collins to make any changes to these numbers before elections and win voter’s trust and confidence.

Jacinda Ardern has earned loads of praise worldwide, earlier for handling Christchurch massacre crises in March 2019 and currently Corona crises in New Zealand. She is now being recognised worldwide as leader with a wit and firm determination. Her successes in swift handling and then stamping out Covid from New Zealand has stamped her a successful administrator. This was not an easy task to accomplish, however small country we may be or far away or disconnected we could be from rest of the world. So, these elections, Jacinda is surely sitting comfortably on her hard-earned laurels and there is nothing that can stop her. Though, as they say anything can change till the election day but here the writing is clearly on the wall.

-Yugal Parashar