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Home / Whanganui Chronicle

Letters: Who chooses the Prime Minister?

Whanganui Chronicle
22 Jul, 2020 05:00 PM3 mins to read

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The Cabinet are the powerhouse of our Government and only they can select and reject our Prime Minister.

The Cabinet are the powerhouse of our Government and only they can select and reject our Prime Minister.

Who chooses the PM?

The recent changes made by a political party to its leadership reminds us all that in New Zealand under our electoral system, we don't directly vote for our Prime Minister or Governor-General. The Cabinet are the powerhouse of our Government and only they can select and reject our Prime Minister.

Therefore I believe that all the media attention and Americanisation of the political party leaders during an election is really unwarranted because voters have no control over who the Cabinet is going to be or the Prime Minister.

On the positive side voters in the USA, who do vote for the leader of their country, are now facing up to the fact that they voted a narcissist into power as their president and if our Cabinet did the same, I guess we could at least deny any responsibility.

BRIAN MOSEN
Whanganui

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Trumped up

It is apparently a favourite pastime to make negative statements and aspersions about the leadership of US President Donald Trump, usually without any reference to facts. What a surprise.

Whether it is an editorial telling us that the New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who sent Covid-19 positive patients into rest homes to keep hospital beds clear for more important patients who didn't turn up, was a better leader during the pandemic than the President; or people who have no idea what the Paris Climate Accords actually did criticising President Trump for the very correct step of removing the US from the Accords; or letter writers in the Chronicle attacking President Trump for the Covid-19 rates in the US; all seem to be based on personal dislike rather than evidence.

For example, when Graham Lewis tries to make some point about Covid-19 in the US being "so bad" that even Mexico doesn't want people from the US visiting, he is ignoring the fact that the US, Canada and Mexico have had these restrictions on border crossings since March, oops. And, since the US is testing 2.21 people per thousand every day for Covid-19, while Mexico is testing 0.07 people per thousand every day, not only are the US numbers of cases going to be higher, it is clearly the Mexican side that is more worrying.

As people attack President Trump, they praise Governors like Cuomo and California's Gavin Newsom who are happy to shut down businesses that keep strict health guidelines but won't criticise the Black Lives Matter "protesters" who breached all the health restrictions. And look, after all those BLM "protesters" marched around arm in arm, rioting, looting, and assaulting people (white, Hispanic, Black, and Asian), there is now a spike in Covid-19 cases. Another surprise.

I am just waiting for someone to blame President Trump for the water shortage in Auckland and the Tiwai Point smelter shutdown, or did somebody do that already and I missed it?

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KA BENFELL
Gonville

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