Is MMP good for wee parties?

One of the supposed virtues of MMP is that it give wee parties a far better opportunity to get into parliament than would be possible under FPP.

But there is little point just getting into parliament. To achieve much a party must get into government and how many of the wee parties that have got into government have survived?

New Zealand First splintered into bits which disappeared at the next election. NZ First came back only because its leader won his seat and in spite of bringing other MPs into parliament was, and still is, no more than a one-man vanity vehicle.

United Future has swallowed up several other parties to no good effect. It too survives on the strength of its leader’s now tenuous hold on a seat and when he goes the party will too.

Act has pulled itself together after nearly falling apart last year. But it struggles to articulate what it really stands for and survives only by virtue of the people of Epsom who voted for its leader.

Alliance imploded. Jim Anderton clung to his seat and pretence at leadership through various changes in party names. The current manifestation still exists only to provide him with a leader’s budget and will go at the next election.

I was pulled up for calling the Green Party wee when it is the third biggest in New Zealand politics.

But that is not so much a reflection on its success, as the failures of all but the two bigger parties. An organisation which can’t count its members in at least thousands, and for democracy’s sakes it should be 10s of thousands, is really only a lobby group not a party.

Call it what you like, a party which has managed to get into parliament in three successive elections but failed to get into government is effectively only a lobby group with public funding.

Now the Maori Party is facing the problem all wee parties face in government – the need to differentiate itself and claim kudos for its achievements without undermining the government or its own support base.

The party’s co-leaders and two of its other MPs have accepted the reality that it’s better to get something  than to stand on a high horse and get nothing. Hone Harawira hasn’t and his antics threaten the party.

If he becomes an independent or forms another party and stands again he might split the vote and allow the Labour candidate to get through. When the Maori Party loses its seats it will almost certainly disappear and the seats could well follow.

The National Party policy to get rid of the seats was set aside in coalition negotiations with the Maori Party. If the party allies itself with Labour or disappears that policy is almost certain to be resuscitated.

After five elections under MMP only three wee parties survive with more than a leader. One has never been in government. The other two are there only because they hold a seat or seats and neither could be regarded as being secure in the long term.

MMP gives wee parties the oxygen of representation in parliament but they risk suffocation when they get into government.