thin majority in parliament. When, in 1984, Marilyn Waring refused to support Muldoon's policies on visits by nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed ships, Muldoon called a snap election. Muldoon made the television announcement of this election while visibly inebriated, and some believe that he later regretted the decision to "go to the country". National lost the election to Labour under David Lange. Fourth Government (1990–1999) Shortly after this loss, the National Party removed Muldoon from the leadership. Jim McLay, who had replaced Duncan MacIntyre as deputy leader shortly before the election, became the new leader. McLay, an urban liberal with right-wing views on economics, however, failed to restore the party's fortunes. In 1986 Jim Bolger took over the leadership with the support of centrists within the party. In the 1990 election National defeated Labour in an electoral landslide and formed a new government under Jim Bolger. However, the party lost some support from Muldoon era policy based conservatives when it continued the economic reforms which had ultimately led to the defeat of the previous Labour government—these policies, started by Labour Party Finance Minister Roger Douglas and popularly known as Rogernomics, centred on the privatisation of state assets and on the removal of tariffs and subsidies. These policies alienated traditional Labour supporters, who saw them as a betrayal of the party's social service based character, but did not appear to appease the membership base of the non-parliamentary party either, which still had a significant supporter base for the statist intervention style policies of the Muldoon Government. Many more conservative and centrist National supporters preferred Muldoon's more authoritarian and interventionist policies over the free-market liberalism promoted by Douglas. However, the new National Party Finance Minister, Ruth Richardson, strongly supported Rogernomics, believing that Douglas had not gone far enough. Her policies—dubbed "Ruthanasia"— encouraged two MPs to leave the National Party and form the Liberal Party. Richardson's views also met with considerable opposition within the National Party Parliamentary Caucus and for a time caused damage to the party's membership base. At the 1993 election, National was narrowly able to retain government owing partly to a slight economic recovery and the opposition being split between three competing parties. National's unprecedented eighteen-seat majority had virtually disappeared and the country faced an election night hung parliament for the first time since 1931, with National one seat short of the required 50 seats to govern. Final special votes counted over