The Dunedin Mayoral Election

In an electoral upset in 1995 Dunedin elected its first woman and first Sikh mayor. This paper argues that the symbolic discourse of the mayoral election confronted the Dunedin electorate with the question of ‘fairness’ or equity in the city. Turner's victory signalled the symbolic rejection by a plurality of voters of the ruling neo-liberal political economy of Dunedin. In the same election the incumbent council, in a political reproduction of the ruling order, was returned. The paper explores this contradiction. It concludes that Dunedin's struggle for a new ruling political alliance necessary to combat a stagnant city economy has just begun.