Anderton’s announcement
A few hours after I blogged that Jim Anderton would be announcing before Monday his mayoral bid, he put out a release confirming that he will be announcing on Sunday.
Now on Sunday he will not just be talking about his Mayoral bid, but also his seat and his party. Here are my predictions for what he will say:
- He is standing for Mayor, probably on the 2021 ticket
- He will not resign as an MP even if he wins the mayoralty
- The Progressive Party is over, and members encouraged to join Labour (which most have anyway)
- The Labour candidate for Wigram in 2011 will be Megan Woods (failed Mayoral candidate in 2008). Of course Jim can not single handedly select Labour’s candidate but there will be some sort of deal around this in exchange, for Progressives merging with Labour
Anderton will try and claim he can be a major city Mayor and an MP, by donating one of his salaries to charity. But that is not the only expense. By claiming to be a parliamentary party leader he gains extra taxpayer funding of $100,000 for his office, and he gets paid paid an extra $13,500 salary.
As I blogged yesterday former Labour MP Kerry Burke may stand also, and former Alliance MP Liz Gordon is already a declared candidate. I suggest any aspiring Christchurch City Councillors speak to Liz (or any other former Alliance MP) about what life will be like if Jim is Mayor. Jim does not believe in collective decision making. He believes in Jim decision making. Jim is to democracy what the Pope is to sex – they both claim to support it, but only on their terms.