New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark and opposition leader Don Brash squared off in a televised debate last night,
following the National Party’s release of the centrepiece of its
campaign, a plan for substantial tax cuts.

The Nationals need something to turn things around,
because according to the opinion polls, Clark’s Labour Party is drawing
away from them. The latest Colmar Brunton poll, published at the
weekend, shows Labour plus the
Greens now winning a majority between them (albeit narrowly, about 63
seats out of 120), without having to worry about the smaller parties.

Interestingly, the trend towards the incumbents is
not confined to New Zealand. Germany’s ruling Social Democrat-Greens
coalition is also making up ground in the polls, although it
remains well behind the opposition Christian Democrats. Commentators
(including this one) who a month ago had written off the government are
now starting to think that just maybe Gerhard Schroeder might be able
to pull off another unlikely victory, or at least do well enough to
create a hung parliament.

Meanwhile, another embattled incumbent, Junichiro
Koizumi of Japan, is also doing well in the polls: his decision to call
a snap election on 11 September has been met with increased approval
ratings. September is going to be an interesting month, but so far it
looks as if the advantages of incumbency might be more powerful than we
thought.