The now-defunct pact between Hone Harawira's Mana Movement and Kim Dotcom's Internet Party was always a marriage of convenience. Probably too much so.
The stickability of their arrangement was in question from the instant the two parties signed a memorandum of understanding back in May to form an umbrella party - Internet Mana - and run under a joint list in the election.
One clause buried near the end of the document provided that either party could terminate the arrangement with seven days' notice.
It was hardly "till death do us part". And the mix of highly ideological, principle-above-compromise individuals at the party's most senior levels meant the contraption was always capable of flying apart at the most inconvenient of moments.
Much of what has been said and written since the election has argued the arrangement was always doomed.