Wellington Citizens' Association

The Citizens' Association (CA), was a right-leaning local body electoral ticket in Wellington, New Zealand. It was formed in 1950 by merging the selection process of council candidates of the Civic League and other interest groups. Its main ambitions were to continue to control the Wellington City Council, reduce local spending and deny left-leaning Labour Party candidates being elected.

History

The Citizens' Association was founded in 1950. The body grew from the earlier organisation, the Civic League, which absorbed the Greater Wellington Electors' Association and Ratepayers' Association to jointly nominate and endorse candidates for local government. It picked candidates from applicants for Wellington's mayoralty, City Council, Harbour Board and Hospital Board. Despite several publicly embarrassing selection controversies (such as in 1950, 1956 and 1965),^[1] the Citizens' Association controlled the council from the time of its inception until finally losing its decades long majority in 1986 when the Labour Party won its first ever majority with Labour's James Belich also capturing the mayoralty for Labour.^[2] It was less successful in controlling the Mayoralty particularly during the 18 year period of 1956–74 when Labour's Frank Kitts was Mayor.^[3]

Results

Council seats

Election	Mayoral candidate	no. of seats won	% of seats	±
1950	Robert Macalister	9 / 15	60.0%	6

Notes

References

• Betts, G.M. (1970). Betts on Wellington: A City and its Politics. Wellington: A. H. & A. W. Reed Ltd. ISBN 0 589 00469 7. 
• Franks, Peter; McAloon, Jim (2016). Labour: The New Zealand Labour Party 1916–2016. Wellington: Victoria University Press. ISBN 978-1-77656-074-5.