Deputy leader of Act quits over list, policy
Act Party stalwart and deputy leader Kenneth Wang withdrew from the party list and resigned as deputy leader yesterday just hours before its line-up of candidates for the election was due to be announced.
Wang said his decision was partly because of the place he was given on the list, but also because the party had moved away from policies that attracted him to it in the first place, including on tougher sentencing and “one law for all”.
Wang has been with Act since 2002 and was an MP between 2004 and 2005 after Donna Awatere Huata left. He was elected deputy leader in April 2014 and was second on the party list in the last election.
His decision was “partially” because of where he was placed on the list — as the deputy leader he had expected to be second. “I told them I should be high or not on it at all. But they have different priorities.”
Act leader David Seymour said Wang had not expressed any unhappiness with the party’s direction until he withdrew.
“When he interviewed to be number two on the list last weekend, he didn’t express anything like that — he was very eager to be in Parliament so can read into that what you will.
“We are grateful for Ken’s long service but we just found there were a lot of better candidates and he was not prepared to accept a position further down the list.”
Wang said his decision was not a sign of no confidence in Seymour, but the party had changed under that leadership. “I think David has a new style and reflects a new generation.”
“There were some particularly important policies that drew me and other people into the party in the first place, namely being tough on crime and one law for all, against racial privilege and discrimination. Those things have either been significantly weakened or disappeared.”
Although Act had secured the three-strikes policy and Seymour had pushed for it to be extended to threestrikes for burglaries, the party no longer advocated tough sentencing laws.
Wang had driven the party’s campaign for the Chinese community — Act was one of the first voters to print brochures in Chinese. Wang said much of that support was because of the same policies he liked and the party risked losing that support.