KEY POINTS:
Some Botany residents say they feel left out of their own electorate, which has largely turned into a battle between Chinese candidates for Chinese voters.
The new seat in East Auckland is one-third Asian and has more voters born overseas than in New Zealand.
But the intense competition for Chinese votes in particular has created a backlash among other voters.
Some Botany residents shunned a meeting to meet the candidates because they did not like campaigns in the electorate being run "like a Chinese market" and the fact that the facilitator for the meeting was Chinese.
Five of 10 non-Chinese residents who spoke to the Herald also complained about receiving political pamphlets in a language they did not understand, the media turning Botany into a Chinatown by just focusing on the Chinese candidates and the "vote one, get other MPs free" campaign of some candidates.
In a Herald street poll of 100 voters in Botany, 61 per cent said they did not like it being seen as a "Chinese/ethnic battleground electorate".
"In all my years as a New Zealander, I have never seen anyone pitch for votes by saying, 'Get one or two MPs free if you vote me', except these Chinese," said a 45-year-old sales executive. "Honestly, I find their Chinese market tactics demeaning and insulting.
"I don't think I am being racist, because I am questioning how they campaign and it has nothing to do with their race."
Most spoke on condition that they not be named because they did not want to be perceived as racist.
Another, who wanted to be known only as Sandy, 24, said: "It's ridiculous that I receive flyers in my mailbox from the candidates in Chinese or whatever, and I am made to feel like I'm a foreigner in my homeland's election."
She said she was "really sick" of the "Chinese-style campaigns" and would give her vote "to any other candidates ... except the Chinese ones".
Sandy, a receptionist, did not go to the candidates' meeting because "even the facilitator is Chinese".
Facilitator Lloyd Wong is a Botany resident and a Public Trust lawyer.
He shares the same surname as National MP Pansy Wong, who is one of three Chinese-born candidates standing for Botany.
The others are Act's Kenneth Wang and Simon Kan from the Kiwi Party.
The Botany electorate was formed last year by incorporating parts of Clevedon, Manukau East and Papakura.
People born overseas (49 per cent) outnumber the locals (47.9 per cent) and it has the country's second-highest proportion of Asian voters (33.5 per cent).
Mr Wang, a former Act MP who is not on his party list, is telling voters that an electorate vote for him is a vote for Wang and Wong, because he says Mrs Wong will be returned to Parliament anyway on National's list.
Mr Kan, who is number three on his party's list, is saying that a split vote between Mr Wang and a party vote for the Kiwi Party will see all three Chinese candidates becoming MPs.
Botany residents are split over whether it is good for candidates to be campaigning in languages other than English.
Cafe worker Shea Cattermoul, 23, said: "I think it is really good that the candidates speak in a language that immigrants can understand because it will help them to be more involved in the process of choosing their new leaders."
But a Russian immigrant, language teacher Katia Kozlova, 25, felt candidates who campaigned in foreign languages were "not respecting the culture or the people of New Zealand".
"Sure, it is good for migrants to be involved in the politics of their adopted country - but please, do it in English."
THE CANDIDATES
* Pansy Wong (National).
* Kenneth Wang (Act).
* Koro Tawa (Labour).
* Raj Subramanian (Independent).
* Simon Kan (Kiwi).
* Peter Cooper (Greens).
* Racheal Cheam (Progressives).
* Judy Carter (United Future).
