Opportunities Party goes public in search for new leader
The Opportunities Party is looking for a new leader, and has taken to Seek to find them.
TOP has been leader-less since 2023, and has taken the unusual approach of an open-call job ad to recruit the person it hopes will lead them to success in 2026.
The job ad was uploaded on Seek on Thursday evening.
The ad said the party was "not fussy" about a candidate's CV.
"PhD in economics? Tremendous. Self-employed builder? Fantastic. Nurse? Magnificent," it said.
"What matters is your ability to lead us towards a better future, live our values (fearless honesty, equitable opportunity, ingenuity, and results that matter), and handle the heat without melting."
Instead, TOP was looking for someone who "understands the reality" of the cost of living, had a reputation for honesty and truth, communicated effectively, and was open to different viewpoints without taking disagreement personally.
"We're not looking for an ideologue. We're looking for someone unashamedly driven by practical solutions that work for everyday Kiwis. Someone who believes in solutions being based on evidence, not whether they sound "left" or "right" and calling it "good" or "bad" based on that alone"
No salary was posted.
The successful candidate would be required to "steer the party to electoral success" in 2026.
The party was founded in 2016 by businessman Gareth Morgan, who stepped down after the 2017 election.
At that election, TOP got 2.4 percent of the party vote, to date its best result, but not enough to reach the 5 percent threshold needed to get into Parliament.
Since then, it has been led by Geoff Simmons, Shai Navot, and Raf Manji.
In 2023, Manji, a former Christchurch City Councillor, placed second in the seat of Ilam, ahead of the then-incumbent, Labour's Sarah Pallett.
National's Hamish Campbell won the seat with a 7830 vote lead over Manji.
In the most recent RNZ-Reid Research poll, TOP polled at 2.2 percent.
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