The Dotcom Mana alliance

Jonathan Milne writes in the HoS:

Internet mogul Kim Dotcom claims he has signed up one sitting MP to join his new party before the election and is talking to three more – a poaching raid unprecedented in New Zealand politics.

He refuses to disclose the identity of the MP, saying it will be revealed once the Internet Party is registered and has chosen all its candidates, probably in June.

His revelation came in an exclusive interview with the Herald on Sunday yesterday.

Dotcom said he was also in talks with Mana Party leader Hone Harawira to unite their two parties under one umbrella, enabling the Internet Party to ride into Parliament on the coat-tails of the Te Tai Tokerau electorate MP.

The two leaders and their party bosses, Vikram Kumar and Gerard Hehir, met on February 28 at a house on Auckland’s North Shore.

The Mana Party executive will this week consider a merger proposal. Mana would bring one or two electorates, the Internet Party would bring a more broadly-based party vote and $1 million-plus in campaign funding.

This is almost hilarious. Dotcom is a multi-millionaire who used to donate to John Banks, who allegedly pays his staff below the minimum wage, and has refused to pay dozens of struggling small businesses the money owed to them for work on his mansion. He would normally be the antithesis of everything the Mana Party claims to stand for. But then he effectively offers them a million dollars and rather than picket him for being an abusive employer (look at how many staff have quit under bad circumstances), they’re going to merge with him!!!

The lure of a million dollars campaign fund is too much to say no to, and all they have to do in return is to make sure that a future Government rules out extraditing Dotcom if a NZ court finds he should be extradited.