We haven't made any mistakes, say party presidents

6.00pm

Labour and National are both blaming confusion about MMP, among other things, for the drop in support their parties have experienced during the election campaign.

Labour's president Mike Williams said it had been difficult to get the message through that the party vote was the most important if people wanted a strong government.

"There's been a huge amount of flak, there have been nine parties running, it's been very hard for the big parties to get a consistent message across," he said on National Radio.

"There's a lot of confusion between the electorate and the party vote."

National's president Michelle Boag agreed.

"We've had very strong constituency campaigns and I don't think people have really understood it is the party vote that decides it (the election)," she said.

Ms Boag had an additional reason for National slipping to record lows in the polls.

"National suffered from the outset ... commentators were saying National could not win," she said.

"So people were groping around for something else ... we've pushed a whole lot of votes away from Labour but they've been scattered to the wind."

Neither would admit they had got anything wrong.

Ms Boag thought National's leader Bill English had performed "extremely well" even though he had not had much time to prepare for the campaign because the election was called early.

Mr Williams said he could not explain why parties like United Future were getting support they had never had before.

"About 10 per cent of National's vote is sloshing around, it's going various places. It could just as easily land back with National or with Labour," he said.

- NZPA

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