Brash refuses to concede defeat, considers future

Don Brash has signalled that he may give up National party leadership if victory escapes him. Picture / Martin Sykes

Don Brash refuses to concede an election defeat, but has signalled he may give up the National leadership if victory finally escapes him.

Yesterday he was determined to remain upbeat, despite coming excruciatingly close to a win considered beyond his grasp just a few months ago.

While the odds are against it, National is hoping the special votes count will see the Green Party fall below the 5 per cent threshold - or that its own seat numbers will increase.

Either scenario could put National in charge of the complex rounds of negotiations with minor parties to cobble together enough support to form a government.

Provisional results have given Helen Clark that right.

Speaking from home before his senior colleagues arrived for talks yesterday, Dr Brash said:

"Clearly we would have liked to have got a larger share of the party vote with a clear victory. But we did of course roughly double the party vote on 2002.

"We won an additional 11 electorates. Ten from Labour, one from New Zealand First and a number of those electorates were regarded as very strong Labour seats - Aoraki and Napier being two.

"While we haven't at this point been able to declare a victory, we can at least say very substantial progress has been made and it's certainly possible that we may yet be able to form a Government. So I'm not feeling depressed at all."

He continued to raise concerns about the stability of any government formed in the wake of the election, because of the way the votes have fallen.

It was "a bit like a dog's breakfast, actually".

"What we have got is a Parliament very, very evenly divided down the middle and if Helen Clark is to form a Government it is going to require three, four or even five parties to support it.

"That's a very unwieldy grouping, particularly when some of those parties are saying 'We don't want any part of an arrangement that includes the Greens'. On both sides the coalition options are quite challenging."

Asked if he was advocating the need for another election he said: "Well, at this point, I think elections are not what the country wants to see.

"But we'll have to see whether either party can form a stable coalition in light of the results we have got."

Dr Brash said he expected to have spoken to the leaders of Act, New Zealand First, United Future and the Maori Party by the end of yesterday.

However he was not planning to hold substantive talks with any of them, believing there was no point until the final results were in.

Asked if he planned to seek any reassurances from his colleagues about keeping the leadership, he said: "My understanding is ... that it is normal after the election to confirm or otherwise the leader and the deputy leader and to confirm a whip and I think we'll do that as usual." That was likely to happen at tomorrow's caucus meeting, he said.

But asked if he wanted to lead the National Party for the next year and into the next election if the special votes did go against it, he said: "I think that's very much a question for the National Party caucus to decide and I won't be crossing that bridge until some time into the future anyway."

But Dr Brash added: "Political parties in New Zealand and indeed elsewhere don't normally continue with leaders who lose elections and I understand and respect that."