Kim Dotcom’s Internet Party has drafted a confidential document that analyses, in detail, each of its prospective candidates for the upcoming general election.
The document, leaked this morning by New Zealand’s only news blog for children, Whale Oil, identifies the five candidates Dotcom and others believe to be their party’s best and brightest, all of whom are presently members of other political parties.
The five prospective candidates include the Mana Party’s Hone Harawira, the Greens’ Gareth Hughes, National’s Tau Henare, and Labour’s Clare Curran and Parekura Horomia.
“The greatest talent in our party – i.e. those most likely to bring us votes this September – have, broadly speaking, one thing in common: they are not in our party,” read the document, believed to have been written by legal adviser Graeme Edgeler. “Additionally, one of them is dead.”
The leaking of the document comes as the Internet Party has attempted to reach out to the larger, more successful Mana Party on the subject of a possible merger to help it enter Parliament.
Mana Party leader Hone Harawira indicated last night that his party will be rejecting any merger with the Internet Party at this stage, as he and others are uncertain of exactly what it stands for.
But Internet Party chief executive Vikram Kumar still holds out hope for the deal, saying that Mana’s lack of certainty about the Internet Party’s principles is “just one of the many things we have in common.”
Asked what other things the parties had in common, Kumar said he was unsure, which was itself one of those things.
“But that aside,” he said, “I think what we’re really trying to communicate through our actions, is that we’re a strong, independent party, with a large support base to draw from, and we will be successful, and we certainly don’t need anybody else’s help to get there.”
“Except Mana’s,” he added. “And anyone else, really. We’ll take anything at this point.”
The Internet Party is set to launch tomorrow, when it will reveal a full list of policies that will reflect its identity as a true internet party by containing plentiful emoticons, mostly porn, and several deceptive indications that you’ve won a million dollars.