I whakaputahia tēnei atikara e RNZ.
Te Pāti Māori says it’s putting its “money where its mouth is” by announcing a “one-person” party list.
The list announcement for the 2026 General Election came on Sunday morning, with only Lance Norman, General Secretary of Te Pāti Māori, selected “unanimously” as the additional list candidate.
The party said it was “reaffirming its candidate-vote strategy” by selecting just one list candidate outside its candidates for the seven Māori electorate.
“This list proves we are putting our money where our mouth is,” Te Pāti Māori Co-Leader Rawiri Waititi said.
“We made a deliberate decision to put collective Māori representation ahead of building a long party list.”
“We said this election is bigger than any one party. Our list reflects that commitment,” Co-Leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said.
She asked supporters to cast their candidate vote for Te Pāti Māori and party vote for Green or Labour.
“We are backing our seven candidates to win the Māori electorates and standing by the strategy we announced to our people.”
In August, the party urged supporters to give their candidate vote to TPM, and their party vote to the left bloc.
At the time, Waititi suggested the party’s strategy could see up to 13 Māori MPs get into power.
The strategy could lead to the creation of an overhang, where there are more seats in Parliament.
Earlier this year, Labour’s Māori campaign chair Willie Jackson criticsed the approach, saying it threatened a backlash against the Māori seats that could lead to their abolition “when you start working the system like that”.
Read all the election policies released so far in RNZ’s full guide
Nā Lillian Hanly nō RNZ.
