Poor vote gives Harawira victory | Northland News | Local News in Northland

The disenfranchised, the poor and ultimately the north is what brought Hone Harawira home in Saturday's Te Tai Tokerau by-election with a third of his majority coming from just four Far North towns.

Mr Harawira won the Te Tai Tokerau by-election with 5611 votes, 867 ahead of Labour List MP Mr Davis, but well short of the 6308 vote majority he held at the 2008 general election.

But an analysis of where the votes were cast shows that what won the vote was the strong support from Mr Harawira's "heartland"- the poor and disenfranchised Maori in Northland.

In Ahipara, Kaitaia, Kaikohe and Moerewa Mr Harawira got 954 votes, 294 more than Mr Davis and 33.9 per cent of the majority. In perhaps the most revealing result of the night Mr Davis was beaten to the vote at Kaitaia Intermediate - the school he was principal of - where he got 72 votes, compared to Mr Harawira's 107.

Mr Davis got a biggest majority in his hometown of Kawakawa, with 113, compared to his rival's 68. Mr Davis also got more support in traditional Labour strongholds of west and north Auckland.

Before the election Labour was trumpeting its ability to mobilise its supporters in both more affluent areas as the key to winning, but it seems that it was the poor and disenfranchised who turned out in numbers.

Targeting the north was a deliberate ploy, Mr Harawira' campaign strategist and Mana Party chairman Matt McCarten said.

"We knew it was always going to be the north that would win it for Hone. We thought if we could hold Auckland to a draw or thereabouts the north would bring it home for us and that's what happened," Mr McCarten said.

"Hone's got a track record in the Far North, but that didn't seem to register with the chattering classes in Wellington who all supported Kelvin. Even the Prime Minister, who is supposed to be in coalition with the Maori Party, came out behind Kelvin."

He said the mandate was far bigger than people suggested, despite the lower majority and he believed it was getting the poor and disenfranchised of the electorate to enroll, then actually vote, that made the difference.

"There was about a 41 per cent [voter] turnout in Te Tai Tokerau, which is far higher than recent by-elections in Botany and Mt Albert. It was a very good turnout for a by-election and [the results] show we managed to motivate the poorest sectors to get out and vote, who are the ones that usually don't [vote]," Mr McCarten said.

He said a deliberate part of the strategy was to hit the last week of the campaign with the message "a vote for Hone will get voters two MPs" - he and Mr Davis who is a Labour List MP.

It was a "get two for the price of one" message that Mr McCarten said tipped many undecided voters Mr Harawira's way.

"When we were door knocking people were saying they liked Kelvin but wanted Hone to get in too. We know people got that message, but if we had done it too early in the campaign it would have given time for a rebuttal and the message may have been lost," he said.