When, in 1997, Shipley toppled Bolger to become National's new leader, relations between National and its coalition partner quickly deteriorated. After Shipley sacked Peters from Cabinet in 1998, New Zealand First split into two groups and half the MPs followed Peters out of the coalition but the remainder broke away, establishing themselves as independents or as members of new parties of which none survived the 1999 election. From the latter group National gained enough support to continue in government with additional confidence support of Alamein Kopu a defect Alliance List MP. The visibly damaged National Government managed to survive the parliamentary term, but lost the election to Labour's Helen Clark and the Alliance's Jim Anderton, who formed a coalition government leaving National in opposition for nine years.