Wednesday, 8 January 2014

Political Predictions for 2014

I am very bad at predictions. After the debacle of predicting that Grant Robertson would win the Labour leadership contest last year, my confidence in my abilities is very low. Nevertheless, I will give it another go for this year since there's an election, and then we'll see how close I get. Later analysis throughout the year will likely change my opinion on some of these. I've already read the predictions from Fairfax, Sunday Star Times, and David Farrar, so they likely subconsciously affected my opinions.

- National will win a third term, but barely (with the support of at least two minor parties).
- Labour will score less than 30%, with the Greens gaining ground and going past 15%.
- ACT won't be back in Parliament in 2015. Peter Dunne will barely win his Ohariu seat again.
- Colin Craig won't win his electorate seat, and the Conservatives won't get enough votes to get into Parliament.
- Another new minor party will capture the interest of the nation in 2014, not including Kim Doctom's party or The Civilian Party. There will be ridiculously huge support for Kim Dotcom's party, particularly among young people, even though Kim Doctom won't be standing himself (he'll just bankroll everything).
- Winston Peters will continue to be alive and kicking... and New Zealand First will continue to be a thorn in the side of the government, whoever it happens to be.
- Voter turnout will be above 75% again on the back of increased youth participation.
- The media will keep stoking the fires of discussion about the National Party leader succession, but John Key will happily stay on for another three years.
- At least two more MPs will be out of Parliament before the general election.
- A rising star in the National Party will get relegated into obscurity for doing/saying something stupid while campaigning.
- More cracks will appear in the Labour caucus as they are led by a guy that most of them don't support.
- A Green Party list reshuffle will lead to some discontent, and cause at least one current MP to be outside the top 15 (and therefore unlikely to return in 2015).
- David Parker will not be the next Finance Minister. He's a nice guy, but no.
- Genesis Energy will be floated and it'll be the last of the asset sales as National prays for the issue to go away before the election.
- Paula Bennett and/or the Ministry of Social Development will be part of another major scandal in 2014.
- Another major TPP leak will bring the issue to the forefront of the public's attention.
- Kim Dotcom will not be extradited to the US (in 2014).
- New Zealand will win a Security Council seat (yay!).

1 comment:

  1. Good predictions, I wonder if we will manage to have the election decided by a low four figure number.
    Ben

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