Tory Whanau Drops Out of the Race

By Darcy Lawrey (he/him)

Mayor Tory Whanau has shaken up the upcoming Wellington local elections with a surprise announcement on Tuesday morning that she will not run for the mayoralty. Whanau, who had previously committed to seeking re-election, will instead run to be a councillor for the Te Whanganui-a-Tara Māori Ward. 

A day after the official start of a major project to regenerate and pedestrianise Courtenay Place, the mayor took to Facebook to announce her decision. She says that former Labour Party leader Andrew Little announcing his candidacy has changed the game. Before Little threw his hat into the ring the race was lacking a progressive alternative. 

Whanau’s most prominent opponents had so far consisted of right-wing councillor Ray Chung, Facebooker Graham Bloxham of Wellington Live fame, and Kaffee Eis founder Karl Tiefenbacher. All three are running on platforms largely focused on cutting council costs and keeping down rates rises. 

With Little now running a Labour-backed mayoral campaign, Whanau says that she does not want a “Green vs. Labour narrative to distract from what’s important for our city.” While local elections in Wellington use Single Transferable Vote, a system widely considered to prevent vote splitting amongst politically similar candidates, Whanau told the NZ Herald that she’s decided to step aside and “give [Little] a clear runway to win the mayoralty”.

She described the relationship between Labour and the Greens as having been somewhat tense recently and believes that working with Little as a councillor could be a way to help rebuild the two parties’ relationship.

Talking to RNZ, Andrew Little called the move a bit of a surprise saying “I thought this was going to be a contest with multiple contestants.” He acknowledged her work as mayor but believed that the city is after new leadership. He says that he has a “breadth and depth of support” that gives him confidence he can win the mayoralty.

Ray Chung, on the other hand, said he was not surprised to see Whanau withdraw her bid after Little announced his. He reckons that she is a likely pick for Little’s deputy next year and believes that the pair have “done a deal to stitch up Wellington” which he says will lead to “absolute chaos in the streets”. No such deals or alliances have been announced by either candidate. Chung says he is “very confident” in his bid for the mayoralty.

With 5 months to go, Wellington will elect a new mayor on 11^th October.