Somewhat predictably, given the close results of the 2017 New Zealand election, no party has a safe path to victory this year. Thus, prospective leaders’ abilities to manage their campaigns, their parties, and the perception that they could manage the government will be under great scrutiny.

My 16^th book Political Management: The Dance of Government and Politics has just been published, and I could think of no better example of the need for politicians to dance than the 2020 New Election. Political management requires 4 D’s: deliberating, designing, dancing, and discharging. Deliberating is about reviewing and reflecting. Designing is concerned with planning, thinking, and strategising. Dancing requires being artful and adaptive to the situation. And discharging is about implementing plans and managing people – the more functional getting things done aspect of political management.

While Jacinda Ardern is riding high in polls and international stardom lately, Labour has clear political management weakness. To be fair, they’ve not had the time to deliberate, with Ardern herself made leader shortly before the campaign started in 2017 and her party put into government unexpectedly. But Ardern has never articulated what her vision for New Zealand is. Ardern herself is a skilful dancer and has proved an effective leader of a complex coalition government as well as the COVID-19 crisis. But the discharge – getting things done – is Ardern and Labour’s big weakness. Despite efforts to deliver their 100-day plan, they have had policies such as capital gains tax  thwarted by their coalition partners and are seen to have failed to deliver flagship government policies such as KiwiBuild.

For 2020, the COVID-19 crisis has made it even harder to create a vision for the future, as indicated by a comment by Ardern in mid-July when she said the election was “taking a bare minimum of my thinking because we’re still in a global pandemic.” Labour want New Zealanders to join their dance, adopting the slogan “Let’s Keep Moving” – but they still haven’t conveyed where they want to move New Zealand to. They have offered a five-point plan focusing on investing in people, jobs, preparing for the future, supporting small business, and global trade – all key issues for the country – but it remains to be seen whether voters will come behind this plan because it still lacks that overall vision.

Normally, opposition parties complete the deliberating aspect of political management very effectively as they get more time to review and reflect, and under Simon Bridges, National created a lot of discussion documents. However it was slow to produce policy design. This was made worse by the global crisis and two leadership changes leading up to the election, with Todd Muller lasting just 50 days before the charismatic Judith Collins took over. Moreover the party’s image of competency has been damaged. The slogan released under Muller, “Strong team, more jobs, better economy,” was naturally undermined by the changes in leader.

Nevertheless, National cannot be written off. Firstly, there is Collins. Her ability to dance on the spot when needed, drawing on her vast experience and strength of character, make the election more competitive. Moreover, Collins can dance to her own tune at times, and if she can harness her more entrepreneurial side in response to the challenges we face, we may see new thinking from National that offers ideas beyond just returning to business as normal. Secondly, National’s first key policy announcement offered a long-term vision to address the congestion and infrastructure crisis in Auckland, which is threatening the quality of life people expect in New Zealand. However, it is vulnerable to the same attacks National often hurl at Labour, such as a lack of costings and detail to ensure it can be discharged. To win in 2020, they have to lay out clear plans for future action and convince voters that National will do better at discharging their plans than Labour did in the 2017-2020 term.

As for the minor parties, Winston Peters is a renowned dancer, so expect sudden moves on the dance floor. New Zealand First can certainly point to preventing policies being discharged that their supporters did not like, but they need to communicate what they did actually get done and convey what new design is on offer for 2020 and beyond. They have started to do this, but in a maverick way: their first policy was to offer a universal family benefit. This is an unusual choice as it puts them in direct competition with their Labour/Green coalition partners. More effective tactical leadership would have been to lead the dance and create unique policies to attract National-leaning voters from the opposition.

The Greens political management so far is promising – they have taken time out to think of new ideas. They talked about now being the time to be ambitious and invest in projects that provide jobs the post-COVID-19 economy needs and create social and environmental benefits. They have proposed policies on nature-related jobs and a Clean Energy Plan. They can call on a new reputation for discharging now they have been in government, with key achievements like the Zero Carbon bill to point to. But will they have satisfied their traditional supporters, who can often want more vision and innovative design than they may have had the chance to devise whilst being in a coalition?

As for Act, the outcome of this competition is promising but uncertain. On one hand they have skilfully completed a difficult dance with their new Deputy Party leader, Brooke van Velden (and a former student of mine!), getting the End of life choice bill passed to enable a referendum on euthanasia. They can at least claim to have given New Zealanders all the chance to express our views on this issue. They are oriented towards the future and freedom, with the slogan “Change your future” tactically positioning themselves as distinctive to the other parties. Whether the memory of David Seymour literally dancing with the stars in the 2019 TV series will boost their competence at political management remains to be seen.

In the 2020 election dance, the moves are unpredictable, the partnerships unclear, and who wins the dance-off is still to be determined – but the show will be fascinating to watch.

Jennifer Lees-Marshment is Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations at The University of Auckland in New Zealand. Author/editor of 16 books, Jennifer is a world expert in political marketing and political management and is also academic advisor to TVNZ’s Vote Compass. Her latest book, Political Management: The Dance of Government and Politics, is available in ebook form and paperback from August 3. See www.lees-marshment.org for further details or email j.lees-marshment@auckland.ac.nz.

This article is published under a Creative Commons License and may be republished with attribution.