Election Surprises

Well Election 2011 is  over and we now are just waiting for the final nitty gritties to be sorted out and final results to be announced.

The special votes are to be counted and in some electorates it could be the difference between who gets in or who gets shafted.

In Waitakere, Carmel Sepuloni is trailling Paula Bennet by a matter of 300+ plus votes but with around 3000 special votes to be counted so anything could happen. In Christchurch Central, where there is a dead heat, the specials will definitely prove the difference between National taking an electorate of Labour or not. There is also speculation from some commentators that the Greens could pick up another list seat from the specials - taking one off National - which is interesting enough for its own blog.

Other surprises are how much Rino Tirikatene defeated Rahui Katene by - I honestly thought Rahui would hold, or narrowly lose. However, she will be missed, and Rino will have to work hard to satisfy the electorates choice for change. I am also surprised at how close Shane Jones got to Pita Sharples. While the overall result was never in doubt, Shane Jones became close enough to now call the seat marginal - with Pita retiring at the next election it will interesting to see how well his Tamaki Makaurau replacement does. What surprises me most is how Shane Jones never actually took the fight to Pita - at times he looked disinterested in the campaign, or politics for that matter.

New Zealand first got a lot more party vote than anyone gave them credit of achieving - I predicted they would fall short 4.9% - but they managed to get to 6.8% meaning 8 MPs. Greens also were a surprise - they got lower than what I expected - I thought 12-15% they only got 10.8% - still a record for them and the first  time the third party has cracked the 10% since NZ First in 1996. I'm still hoping they can somehow pick up the 14 seat to get Mojo Mathers in - she would be our first Deaf MP.

All in all, the overall election went as predictable with a few small surprises here and there - but let's hope the MPs from all parties operate in the best of interest of the people of New Zealand.