Is the wait ending?

Very disappointed no one in New Zealand newsmedia is using “Winston Watch” brand. @nzherald @NZStuff @NewshubNZ @rnz_news @1NewsNZ

— Arthur Schenck (@AmeriNZ) October 18, 2017

New Zealand may be about to have its next government announced—maybe. More or less. New Zealand First leader Winston Peters is probably going to announce the direction he’s going tomorrow (afternoon?). Even so, we may not know exactly what shape the government will take, with issues like who gets what portfolio to be determined.

We didn’t know any of that at the time I posted the Tweet above. It’s little sarcastic, but also true: We’re all waiting on Winston to tell us what government we’ll have. There are plenty of people from all over the political spectrum who aren’t happy about that, but, then, wrapped up in nostalgia for the old First Past The Post electoral system, they wouldn’t be happy no matter who was in the driver’s seat in coalition negotiations.

The thing is, this isn’t the first time we’ve been here, thinking Winston was about to announce his choice, only to find out there was some sort of delay. I’ve delayed recording podcast episodes every day this week so far because every day I thought the announcement was imminent, or it’d be the next day, making the episode instantly out of date. I wanted to wait until there was an actual answer.

Whenever the decision is made, I’ll have quite a lot to say about it, regardless of which government Winston chooses. But, for now, I’m content to wait it out.

One last thing, though. When I watched the TVNZ’s One News at 6pm tonight, the opening teaser used the phrase I Tweeted this afternoon, saying “…the Winston Watch continues…”, and I Tweeted about that, too. Feel. My. Power.