Laws on local body elections

Few were surprised that Michael Laws has decided to stand again for the Wanganui Mayoralty.  Michael has never been one to give power up willingly.  I have no doubt he will get elected again – I suspect with a huge majority.

Michael writes in the SST about other elections:

Auckland is shaping, as ever, as a professional mud wrestling contest. The often peptic John Banks is back, declaring himself a changed man. And unlike Rodney Hide, he did not need to dance to be so. He will beat Dick Hubbard for one simple reason: Dick hasn’t done anything.

This isn’t really Hubbard’s fault. His naivete led him to believe that being mayor would be like being chairman of a board of directors managing a cereal company. Which, of course, it should be. Unfortunately, a team of liberals and left-wingers had won the majority of council seats and Dick thus had two choices. He could willingly become their puppet, or he could fight them all the way through until now and then throw himself on the electorate and demand they give him a team that he could work with.

He chose neither option. Splat. Run down by the traffic coming both ways.