Is this the last of NZ First?

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters didn’t look like aman who had been exonerated when he did the round of TV and radio appearances on Wednesday morning. He more closely resembled a desperate politician who knows he is in the fight of his life.

Bluster and defensiveness have been central features of Peters’ highly successful political strategy since at least the 1990s. No other New Zealand politician has managed to cultivate a position like this, inwhich he appears to be both inside and outside the system at the same time. But this week, Peters’ appearances have had a sense of melancholy and even confusion.

The public is equally confused. At its heart, the matter concerns the mysterious

NZ First Foundation. A stuff investigation discovered that the foundation had been acting as a slush fund that funnelled donations to the NZ First political party.

Records showed that about half amillion dollars of donations made between 2017 and 2019 had entered into the foundation’s bank account. Donors thought the money was going to the political party.

Invoices showed that foundation money was being spent on party-related expenses, including party headquarters, graphic design, an MP’S legal advice and even a day at the races. The amount of donations deposited into the foundation, and used by the party, was at odds with annual returns filed by NZ First.

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) began looking into the foundation in February and has announced that two people have been charged with ‘‘obtaining by deception’’. The NZ First party tried to have the announcement pushed back until after a new government is formed, which is perhaps a month away. That failed, of course, but the party did get the SFO to clarify that neither defendant is a NZ First MP, candidate or staff member.

Both defendants have name suppression, which is being challenged by Stuff and RNZ. The voting public has an interest in knowing their connections, if any, to the NZ First party and whether NZ First’s media criticisms of the SFO have been fair and accurate.

It is understandable that Peters is aggrieved by the timing of the announcement and feels singled out. He has wondered if the SFO would make a similar announcement about Labour or National so close to an election. Yet delaying the news until after October 17 would have been unacceptable to the functioning of democracy. That, of course, is what NZ First sought to do.

Peters’ claim to be exonerated rests on his hope that he can keep the party at arm’s length from the foundation. But would a politician who really believed he had been cleared try to keep an announcement like this from the public until after votes were counted?

A parallel could be drawn between the news of the SFO charges and the recent publication of US President Donald Trump’s tax returns by the New York Times. The exposure showed that Trump had ‘‘lost control of the game’’, as journalist David Frum put it. Similarly, Peters has been blindsided by events.

If there is desperation, it is because NZ First is polling at a disastrously low 1 per cent. Its traditional protest vote looks to be drifting off to newer parties of the Right that lack Peters’ baggage. If this really is the last gasp of NZ First, it would be a sad end for a political movement that emerged as a popular voice for transparency.

It would be a sad end for a political movement that emerged as a popular voice for transparency.