On January 25, Chris Hipkins was sworn in as the 41st prime minister of New Zealand, succeeding Jacinda Ardern in the role. That left some people wondering - and commenting - is Chris Hipkins an unelected leader?
Put very simply, the answer is no - Chris Hipkins has been duly elected just as Jacinda Ardern, Bill English, John Key, Helen Clark and Jenny Shipley (and so on and so on) before him.
In fact, there is precedent for the way Hipkins became prime minister - it’s the same way Bill English and Jenny Shipley became prime minister. English took over from Key when he resigned, and Shipley took over from Jim Bolger when she rolled him (technically he resigned too, but it was a little more reluctantly than John Key, to say the least).
Sir Geoffrey Palmer also took over the role mid-term when David Lange resigned, and when Palmer resigned, Mike Moore took over with 59 days left in the term.
University of Otago politics professor Janine Hayward says part of the confusion may arise as New Zealanders never directly elect prime ministers.
“We don’t have presidential-style politics. We use a parliamentary system.”
At the general election, eligible voters have two votes - one for an electorate candidate and the other is for the party voters want to see in Government.
So, if you live in, for example, the Wellington Central electorate, you vote for a candidate to represent you in that electorate with one vote, and with another vote, you select the party you most prefer.
“Rather than directly voting for who we want to be prime minister, we vote for candidates to go to parliament for us and we vote for a party that’s going to be in Government,” Hayward said.
“How the prime minister emerges is through a combination of the candidates that we send to parliament, the parties that we voted for and who the leaders of those parties are.
“Most often what happens is, whoever the party is that forms the government, the leader of that party at that time will become our prime minister.
“It’s not like voters can choose directly.”
She said for some voters it will likely matter who the leader is, however, so voters can form an assessment of their ability to be prime minister.
Leadership is and should be important to voters, and just as John Key before her, Jacinda Ardern, was for some, the charismatic drawcard that convinced people to vote Labour. But ultimately, voters choose the party they most want in government, not the prime minister.
Hayward said it was important to remember a prime minister was a member of a team.
“Parliamentary politics is about Cabinet. It is about that group of ministers who really do hold a lot of power in New Zealand politics.
“Our prime minister is really just our most important and unique minister. They do have some important powers, but they are part of a team of people and that team can set limits on their authority also.”
As Cabinet meetings were closed to the public, it meant the public also didn’t see how the prime minister’s authority was checked.
“[Prime ministers] don’t have the kind of authority that a president has.”
She believed what could be confusing for people was that leaders got a lot of press coverage.
“They get a lot of time in the media. Whenever we’re talking about general elections we talk about the popularity of different party leaders in the way that that affects how people are going to vote.
She said it was fair some people overestimated the power of a prime minister and likened it to a president but said it was “unhelpful” for someone to suggest a prime minister was unelected.
The mandate for the prime minister came from the party’s mandate, which in turn came from voters.
In 2020, voters overwhelmingly voted for a Labour-led Government. That meant, under the parliamentary system, Labour had the mandate to form a government, and the consent to decide who among the caucus was the prime minister. That is usually the leader of the party.
If a prime minister resigns, the political party will have a process to decide who will replace them as the next leader of the party and prime minister.
Labour’s process was to hold a caucus vote on it, unless there was only one candidate nominated for the role. The latter occurred, and the caucus later confirmed Hipkins’ selection as prime minister.
So, when Ardern called time on hanging out on the ninth floor – ke te pai. The Labour caucus had the right to choose a successor, and did – Hipkins.
The prime minister, just like all before him, is duly elected.
Until October 14 of course - he’s got until then to prove he’s the right person for the job.
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