Voters in the dark

Did Winston Peters mislead both Labour and National and the general public during the post-election negotiations? He was never going to form a government with National at the same time as taking legal proceedings against its leadership.

And what about those those who voted for NZ First? Peters kept his supporters on both the centre right and centre left (about equal) guessing all the way to election day over which side he would support.

If he had come clean to the voting public at that time that he would not be dealing with National under any circumstances then most of his centre right voters could have switched their votes to National. This would have meant NZ First’s vote would have fallen to 3.5 per cent and National’s would have risen to 48 per cent.

NZ First would have not returned to Parliament and with the wasted votes National would have been able to form a government with the Act Party.

Philip O’Brien, St. Heliers.