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Auckland, New Zealand
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern won a second term on Saturday in a landslide victory of historic proportions.
With the majority of the votes counted, Ardern’s Liberal Labor Party was winning 49% of the vote compared to 27% for its main rival, the conservative National Party.
Labor was on track to win an absolute majority of the seats in Parliament, something that has not happened since New Zealand implemented a proportional voting system 24 years ago. Normally, parties must form alliances to rule, but this time Ardern and Labor can do it alone.
In a victory speech in front of hundreds of supporters in Auckland, Ardern said his party had received more support from New Zealanders than at any time in at least 50 years.
“This has not been an ordinary election, and it is not an ordinary time,” he said. “It’s been full of uncertainty and anxiety, and we set out to be an antidote to that.”
Ardern vowed not to take his new supporters for granted and to rule for all New Zealanders.
“We live in an increasingly polarized world, a place where more and more people have lost the ability to see other people’s point of view,” he said. “I think that in these elections, New Zealanders have shown that this is not who we are.”
A record number of voters cast their early votes in the two weeks leading up to the election.
In the election campaign, Ardern was received like a rock star by people who crowded the malls and took to the streets to cheer her up and take selfies with her.
His popularity soared earlier this year after he led a successful effort to eradicate the coronavirus. Currently, there is no community spread of the virus in the nation of 5 million people and people are no longer required to wear masks or social distancing.
Ardern, 40, won the top post after the 2017 election when Labor formed an alliance with two other parties. The following year, she became the second world leader to give birth while in office.
She became a role model for working mothers around the world, many of whom saw her as a counterpoint to President Donald Trump. And she was praised for her handling of last year’s attack on two Christchurch mosques, when 51 Muslim worshipers were shot dead by a white supremacist.
He moved quickly to pass new laws outlawing the deadliest types of semi-automatic weapons.
In late March this year, when only about 100 people had tested positive for COVID-19, Ardern and his health officials put New Zealand on a strict lockdown with the slogan of “Go hard, go early.” He closed the borders and outlined an ambitious goal of eliminating the virus entirely rather than simply trying to control its spread.
With New Zealand having the advantage of being an isolated island nation, the strategy worked. The country eliminated community broadcasting for 102 days before a new group was discovered in August in Auckland. Ardern quickly imposed a second lockdown on Auckland and the new outbreak faded. The only new cases recently found have been among returning travelers, who are in quarantine.
The Auckland outbreak also led Ardern to postpone the elections for a month and helped increase early voter turnout.
The leader of the National Party, Judith Collins, is a former attorney. She served as a minister when National was in power and prides herself on a direct and no-nonsense approach, in contrast to Ardern’s empathetic style. Collins, 61, promised sweeping tax cuts in response to the economic recession caused by the virus.
In a speech to his followers in Auckland, Collins said he had called Ardern to congratulate her.
“It is an outstanding result for the Labor Party,” Collins said. “It has been a tough campaign.”
Collins promised that the party would fight again another day.
The election also saw Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and his small New Zealand First party voted. The libertarian ACT Party increased its support to 8% and the Green Party got 7.5% of the vote.
Labor Minister David Parker said it was a landslide victory for his party. “This is high praise first and foremost for the prime minister, but also for the Labor team in general and the Labor movement,” he said.
In the elections, voters also had a voice on two contentious social issues: whether to legalize marijuana and euthanasia. Polls conducted before the elections indicated that the referendum on euthanasia is likely to pass, while the outcome of the vote on marijuana remains uncertain. The results of both referendums will be announced on October 30.
