Election night and a sigh of relief

NZ's triennial parliamentary election was held yesterday. I spent most of the day at work, then trotted up the hill and went and ticked a couple of boxes with uncharacteristic decisiveness. The anguish came later that night, after I'd made a slightly soggy paella, as the election night coverage commenced and the votes began to be tallied. National were ahead by about 10 percent with just under 10 percent of the votes counted. But by the time we got to Jimmy's huge throbbing post-election party things were starting to even out, the Greens were sitting above five percent, and the left/right margin continued to narrow until the final result (with special votes to follow apparently traditionally favouring National) had Labour with just one seat more than National. So yes the country has swung to the right since the 2002 landslide, but it could have been worse. It could have been so so so much worse. And as an esteemed acquaintance of mine pointed out at the succession of the evening as Clark took the podium and made what was effectively a victory speech, at least a large percentage of NZers, (well, about half of them) were not blinded by the superficial platform of tax cuts.

Highlights of the night. Hobbs took Wellington Central, Clarkson ejected Peters from Tauranga, Lauren got a bit boozed and let me drive her car, and I woke up at nearly 10 o'clock this morning and didn't have to sob into my pillow.