The news Te Ururoa Flavell was stepping down as co-leader of the Māori Party came as a surprise, especially to those who thought he had stepped down 10 months ago.
Flavell announced today he had quit as co-leader to take up a new job as chief executive at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa.
He had in fact said after the Māori Party's devastating election result last September that he would quit then – but a bit later decided to stay until somebody else was ready to take his place.
The party's female co-leader Marama Fox remains. Fox is still a force of nature and capable of getting media attention, but she too has now said she may not stick around for 2020 and is busy with a new affordable housing venture.
Some wrote the Māori Party's epitaph on the night of that election result which saw Labour regain the Māori Party's sole remaining seat – Flavell's former stronghold of Waiariki.
The Māori Party is now in the doldrums of a term outside Parliament without resources, money, attention or the leaders needed to get it out.
The chances of it getting back in in 2020 do seem slim, although two tailwinds could come its way. It just needs to catch them.
Māori Party co-leader Marama Fox on the election campaign. Photo / Paul Taylor
The first would be an impressive new leader or two. That does not simply mean charisma. It means someone who can organise and has grit enough to grin and bear the hard times.
The second is an inadvertent helping hand from Labour. The only sign of hope in that regard thus far was in the Budget, which delivered very little to Māori Development portfolio compared to the sums the Māori Party got from National.
Instead Labour's MPs resorted to pointing to the benefits for Māori families from universal packages, such as the Families Package.
The Māori Party did leap on that glimmer of hope, saying it showed the need for an independent Māori voice to push for targeted Māori funding. In 2020 it will also target those MPs it believes are not seen as effective in their seats.
But it is poor strategy to rely on your opponent stuffing up for your own survival.
So it will be left to the Māori Party to work out a strategy at its annual conference in October.
Some of that will be the face it presents in future. But it will also look back at what worked for it in the past. That was its grass-roots style of campaigning and organising.
That was one of its strongest suits, and Flavell pointed to the weakening of that in 2017 as one of the reasons for the loss.
When it comes to the leadership the name of Dr Lance O'Sullivan has been mentioned although O'Sullivan has said he would only take it on if he was the only leader and could alter the party as he believed necessary. He has been quiet on his political plans lately.
Both he and Fox could do the party a favour by stopping the faffing around and making a firm commitment either way.
The party does have something of a "new generation" within it, younger people who have long been involved in the party and are now taking up higher positions.
Among them are current President Che Wilson and Vice-President Kaapua Smith. Both are well grounded in how the Māori Party works in practice, and energetic.
Other parties have had their epitaphs written too early, and hence often.
Many were the predictions of doom for Act, United Future and NZ First over the years.
Some parties' fortunes are wedded to their leaders. The Māori Party sought to establish itself as a party of principle rather than personality, similar to the Greens.
