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New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaks during her post-Cabinet media update in Parliament on April 6, 2020 in Wellington, New Zealand.
Getty Images / Mark Mitchell
- New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern promised to continue pushing her vision for the country after winning the national elections.
- He obtained an absolute majority, which gave him the mandate to implement his campaign promises.
- The 40-year-old has been internationally acclaimed for her progressive politics.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern vowed on Sunday to “move on” with delivering her vision after a landslide election victory, following a series of disasters that thwarted reform in her first term.
Ardern won a historic absolute majority in Saturday’s vote, the first since New Zealand adopted the proportional vote in 1996, allowing it to implement policies without the support of minority parties.
READ | Ardern wins landslide in New Zealand elections
After facing criticism since taking office in 2017 for failing to deliver on key promises like protecting the environment and reducing child poverty, Ardern said he now had a mandate for change.
The charismatic leader said the scale of victory, the largest for Labor since 1946, meant more voters backed her center-left party and its reform agenda.
“I think they supported the work that we have done and the plan that we have to move forward, and there are some areas we want to work on,” Ardern said.
The 40-year-old, who has been hailed internationally as a champion of progressive politics, admitted that the need to placate minority party coalition partners “slowed” reform in her first term.
It also faced New Zealand’s worst terror attack, a deadly volcanic eruption and the country’s deepest recession in 30 years.
In his victory speech Saturday night, Ardern pointed to an increase in state housing, more renewable energy and other infrastructure investments.
He also spoke of more training programs, job creation, protecting the environment and a determination to tackle issues like climate change, poverty and inequality.
Opposition leader Judith Collins admitted that voters had given Ardern free rein to implement change, but said that also meant that the prime minister could no longer claim that her political failures were caused by timid coalition partners at the reforms.
“The government is mandated to do all the things they promised to do, so they can’t blame anyone else for not complying,” Collins told reporters.
The campaign during the vote focused on the government’s successful response to the coronavirus, and Ardern called it the “Covid election.”
New Zealand has recorded just 25 coronavirus deaths out of a population of five million, which, according to Collins, increased Ardern’s position in an electorate anxious about the pandemic.
However, Ardern received a reminder that the threat remained potent when health authorities announced a new case of community transmission in Auckland on Sunday, two weeks after she announced: “We beat the virus again.”
When asked if he had enjoyed a break after a grueling campaign, Ardern replied, “No, I was dealing with Covid.”
He said the case appeared to be contained and would not cause a change in New Zealand’s virus alert level, currently in its more relaxed setting, Level One.
His Labor Party’s 49.1% of votes was its best electoral performance since 1946, while National’s 26.8% was the second worst since the party was founded in 1936.
Collins said he would remain as the national leader but commission an independent review on how the party’s vote fell nearly 18 points since the last election in 2017.
