The Government is still refusing to acknowledge the protest, even though 4 ex politicians have walked amongst the protesters and spoken to them.
The standard excuse is possible violence, and don’t seem to acknowledge the professional negotiator, who has been working on the protesters behalf
I can only conclude that they don’t know how to react to the situation, so they are hoping it will go away if they keep their head in the sand for long enough.
History is not on the Governments side. They spoke to the protestors at Ihumateo, and sympathised with them, They gave money to the Mongrel Mob gang, and have had dealings with the Taliban in Afghanistan recently.
The Police themselves aren’t in a good position to negotiate either, because nobody trust them after the events of a few weeks ago.
So the standoff continues.
The Police keep trying to quietly nobble the protest, while trying to win over the media at the same time.
They started by stopping the truck that empties the toilets…..
The protesters countermeasure to that was to install semi-permanent toilets.
(This is what happens when tradesmen are amongst those at the protest)
Semi-permanent showers were installed the next day by the protestors, but the Police took exception to these and removed them with a show of force later that night.
So how will this end?
At present the Police are likely to surround them and push them off the premises in the next few days.
They need to be careful though, 55% are women, and there are quite a few children, also 30% of the public are behind the protestors. That simply can’t be ignored.
Every second person there has a phone or camera, and any unprovoked voilence by the police isn’t going win them any friends.
At the end of the day, it’s a battle for public opinion. If the Police get it wrong through a gun-ho attitude and lack of discipline like the last time, it isn’t going to go well for them.
Tomorrow could be interesting.
Update
The Police lauched a major operation to end the protest, and I’m waiting for the dust to settle before making any comments. There are lots of rumours flying about, but unless I can verify them, I’m not repeating them.
Uncoffined 
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