Wednesday 1 October 2008

A Woman's Place: Kiwi Party's List & Electorate candidates (kind of)

The title of this post equivocates because the Kiwi Party have taken the odd step of announcing their top ten list candidates, in a very bare media statement (which doesn't appear to be on their website), with no indication of when (or if) there are more to be added... While you won't find the party list on the site either, they do have a candidate page.

Historical & current representation of women:
It's the ol' one out of one story again here. Gordon Copeland is their sole MP, having split from the party he represented at the last election, UnitedFuture. I am starting to love new Splitsville parties, there is a lot less counting to do.

2008 Kiwi Party list (top ten):
Women represented across the list announced so far: 2 out of 10 (20%)

Top 5 - One (Simonne Dyer at 5) 1/5 = 20%
Top 10 - Two (Vapi Kupenga at 9) 2/10 = 20%

Curiously the candidate page lists Marg Mulholland as a List Only Candidate. But she's not on the list. There are only two List Onlys on the candidate page, both women (the other being Kupenga).

Part of me is not surprised there are so few women, given the socially conservative nature of the Kiwi Party. And I guess at least we can say that they are reasonably evenly spaced, which does give a nice aesthetic. It's probably uncharitable to complain about the low rankings (and low numbers) of women, given that the men aren't exactly in winnable spots either.

The Kiwi Party's 2008 Electorate Candidates:
Women candidates for electorate seats: 6 out of 25 (24%)

And they are: Lindsay Cameron (Wigram), Camilia Chin (Hutt South), Rebekah Clement (Wellington Central), Simonne Dyer (Rodney), Grace Haden (Epsom) and Robyn Jackson (Hamilton East).

Likely future female representation for the Progressives:
Call me mean, but I don't think the Kiwi Party is likely to have any representation in Parliament at all come November 9th.


Other posts in this series to date:
- Act's Party List
- Green's Party List
- National's Party List
- The Maori Party's candidates (list and electorate)
- Labour's Party List
- UnitedFuture's Pary list
- National's electorate candidates
- The Progressive Party's list

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

it is interesting that the Kiwi Party motto seems to be "Your voice - not hers"
Presumbly the voice not to be heard is Helen Clark's.

Kiwi Chauvanist Party anyone?

Anonymous said...

Dunno about this. Even if the candidates for the Kiwi Party were all women or all men it wouldn't make a difference for me. They would still all be people with moronic political views. Their gender is irrelevant.

Anonymous said...

Irrelevant, but interesting (I thought).

Andrew said...

What does the Kiwi Party stand for exactly? They seem to be a lot like UnitedFuture, but more keen on hitting children. It's not much of a vision for voters to rally around.

Anonymous said...

Kiwi Party seems to be one of the best minor parties out - I'm not sure where you get your idea of them being moronic, considering they seem to have well balanced policy on their website that is entirely sensible.

I believe the policy priority of repealing the 'anti-correction' law is based on the fact that it is an undemocratic law, given the amount of NZers who didn't want it.

What is so bad about the Kiwi Party standing for real democracy? I'll certainly be voting them. The public's voice has been lost over Labour's reign!

Anna said...

Anon, I don't believe for a moment that the Kiwi party's objection to the anti-smacking law is based on it's not having popular support. Judging by divorce and de facto relationship stats, marriage doesn't have much popular support either, but the Kiwi party wants to promote this.

This isn't to say that the Kiwi party's manifesto is uniformly bad, but it doesn't seem much differentiated from United Future's except on the smacking issue.

Anonymous said...

I am surprised the country would want someone like Simonne Dyer making choices for them, her family is not quite the role model to speak of. Her son is autocratic and had inherited those traits from his mother. Simonne was also instrumental is causing serious family rifts and aided in a family being broken due to lies and deceit. Is this what the country has to look forward to? Good luck to you lot, glad we are not in the country right now! But then, isn't that what politics are all about? Who can shout the loudest and lie the best!?