Not a surprise outcome

It’s not exactly a surprise but congratulations to Kris Faafoi for winning Labour’s selection to be their candidate for Mana.

Kris will become the MP for Mana (Labour have never not held the seat). I look forward to his maiden speech.

Also congratulations to Fran Mold on her new job as a press secretary for Phil Goff.

UPDATE: A Labour Party member writes about what happened in the comments:

As a local party member I have seen some stitch ups in my time but this was a disgrace and once again the Mana Labour party is lumbered with an out of town drop in candidate.

We should be used to it by now I guess, but it really gets my goat. Almost the entire leaders office staff including the chief of staff and leaders secretary were there today, you had a group of staff including other press secretaries and advisors counting to floor votes and “checking” membership details. They even tried to stop one longtime member in her 70s from voting – she still has Michael Joseph Savage on her kitchen wall and these upstarts tried to say she wasnt Labour!

These Goff staffers brought with them affiliated union members to stack the votes in favour of Faafoi.

The whole thing was a set up and it was a race based selection. Well, Phil Goff has got the man he wanted but he has lost my support and the support of many others in the process.

Ouch, that is not a good look.