Posted by Blogger Name. Category:
Internet Party
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Laila Harre
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Martyn Bradbury
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MegaMana
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The Alliance
Laila Harre is to be named tomorrow as the leader of the Internet Party; the Herald reports:
Former Alliance Party MP Laila Harré will be announced as the leader of Kim Dotcom's Internet Party tomorrow, the Herald understands.
Internet Party chief executive Vikram Kumar and Mana Party Leader Hone Harawira yesterday refused to comment on who the leader would be but Mr Harawira said it was a "high calibre" person while Mr Kumar said it would be "a known" political figure.
The appointment of a leader was a crucial step in sealing the electoral alliance between the Internet Party and Mana which was confirmed yesterday.
At that time, Mr Harawira said " once it became clear who they were talking to in terms of the leader it made it easier for us to continue the negotiations".
Ms Harré was a former Alliance MP and worked as advisor for Green Party until recently. Now at CTU she is working on the Get Out and Vote campaign.
And Martyn Bradbury has send a typically bombastic message out to critics of the MegaMana hook-up:
Left wing blogger Martyn Bradbury who has worked on strategy for the Internet Party this afternoon wrote: "The secret is out. Laila Harre will be the new leader of the Internet Party. So if this works the way we hope it will, Hone Harawira, Laila Harre, Annette Sykes and John Minto will be in Parliament.
"Where's all that left wing angst and screams of sell out now?"
Interestingly though, the Internet Party claims that Bradbury doesn't speak for them (and probably wishes he wouldn't!):
Mr Kumar said party "isn't commenting on the leader at all up till 2pm tomorrow".
He said Mr Bradbury "has zero influence, advice or role with the Internet Party".
Its lovely to see all the frothing on the Left. The Greens will be feeling betrayed that having poached Ms Harre from Labour, via the Alliance, she's now jumped waka again. Her selection certainly doesn't bring anything particularly new or visionary to the table. And we can't see too many votes being lured away from the centre-right with the appointment of another recycled trade unionist.
We've been in a meeting all day, and only just got home. But we'll close with this picture, that arrived in our inbox as we were typing out this post:
