Colin Craig Should we be worried about the new fundamentalist microparty known as the Conservative Party? Perhaps. In two successive polls, Colin Craig's Conservative Party has started to poll relatively well, at two to four percent. Millionaire Colin Craig is the party founder. He is a fundamentalist Christian real estate developer, and organised a pro-belting "March for Democracy" in 2007 against the abolition of parental corporal punishment. Later, he ran a distant third in the Auckland mayoral race in 2010. When he founded the Conservative Party shortly before serious campaigning opened in this year's general election, many questioned his political nous in this context. However, in a short period of time, it gained enough members to register, now has fifty two electoral candidates standing and is polling from two to four percent in some election polling. Now, Mr Craig may well have strong organisational skills and be using his own revenue to fund his party, but where are his party's members and voter share coming from? I would argue that it is probably the debris of other populist and social conservative parties, such as Christian Heritage, New Zealand First, United Future and the Kiwi Party. They have now swung behind Colin Craig as a populist political leader and religious social conservative as they once did Winston Peters, Graham Capill, Peter Dunne's caucus, ad nauseum. What are their electoral prospects? Colin Craig is standing in Rodney, not previously a marginal electorate of note, although it was also the scene of a bitter and fratricidal National Party election contest to succeed Lockwood Smith, with accusations of fundamentalist branch stacking and entryism from some quarters. Craig is talking up his prospects, but there is no independent opinion poll verification that this safe National seat will suddenly elect a microparty leader as its MP. What is the risk if he succeeds, however? Back in the days of the Christian Heritage Party, there was an earnest desire to become National's satellite companion, almost achieved in 1996 when the CHP and Christian Democrats fused to become the short-lived Christian Coalition. It was esposed for the fundamentalist Trojan horse that it was, and failed to make the five percent threshold, falling apart shortly afterward. Since then, neither the Destiny Party, Family Party or Kiwi Party has come near MMP's five percent threshold required for list-only parliamentary representation. It would be dreadfully ironic if we lost ACT and United Future as National Party satellites at this election, only to have them replaced by a populist, fundamentalist satellite party, able to obstruct progressive social reform legislation. Craig Young - 5th November 2011