Blood on the floor: Best and worst leadership coups and the ones that backfired

Opinion bySenior Political Correspondent·NZ Herald·14 Aug, 2026 09:00 PM11 mins to readAudrey Young, Senior Political Correspondent at the New Zealand Herald based at Parliament, specialises in writing about politics and power.‌As Prime Ministers and other political leaders have found, the success or failure of a leadership coup isn't always obvious immediately.Judgments on the success or failure of a leadership coup are sometimes best made with the benefit of time, suggests senior political correspondent Audrey Young, who has covered many of them over 30 years. The least successful attempted coup in the past 30 years was the one against Helen