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New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been acclaimed around the world for her government’s swift action on Covid-19, which has helped New Zealand avoid the massive infections and deaths that have devastated the United States and Europe. Now, the country’s voters have responded to his leadership by giving Ardern and his Labor Party their biggest electoral victory in 50 years.
Ardern, 40, gained international attention when she became prime minister in 2017 and was one of the youngest female leaders in the world at the time. Earlier this year, his center-left party seemed poised for a tight election due to a lack of progress on issues it had promised to prioritize, such as housing and reducing child poverty, CNN reported.
Then came Covid-19. Ardern responded quickly, with an early lockdown that essentially eliminated the spread of the virus. He also spoke directly to New Zealanders with a warmth and empathy that has been lacking in other world leaders, helping to defuse New Zealanders’ anxieties and engaging them in coronavirus restrictions. To date, New Zealand has reported fewer than 2,000 cases and 25 deaths due to Covid-19.
In Saturday’s election, Ardern’s party is on track to win 64 of the 120 seats in the country’s parliament, according to Reuters. That would give the Labor Party decisive control of the government, allowing it to rule without having to form a coalition and giving Ardern and his allies more power than ever to chart New Zealand’s course through the pandemic and beyond.
“We are going to rebuild better from the Covid crisis,” Ardern said in his acceptance speech on Saturday, evoking a slogan also used by the presidential campaign of former US Vice President Joe Biden. “This is our chance.”
Ardern has always been popular abroad. Now he has a mandate at home.
Ardern has maintained a high profile around the world since she was elected, as Damien Cave reports in the New York Times. It wasn’t just her youth that garnered attention, but she also became the first world leader in nearly 30 years to give birth while in office in 2018. Her six-week parental leave was hailed as groundbreaking, showcasing the importance of paid leave for parents at a time when many, especially in the US, struggle to access this benefit. (In New Zealand, new parents can access up to 26 weeks of government-funded paid leave.)
But Ardern hasn’t always been as successful at home as it was abroad. Leading a coalition with New Zealand’s First Nationalist Party, he has fought to deliver on progressive promises like making housing more affordable and addressing climate change, Cave reports.
Covid-19 then changed everything. Ardern was praised not only around the world, but in New Zealand as well, where her swift action meant that many children were able to return to school and adults were able to return to work, while countries such as the US.
Meanwhile, his personal speeches amid the pandemic to New Zealanders were praised for their candor and warmth. In April, for example, he assured the country’s children that both the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny were considered essential workers.
Ardern’s response was in many ways the embodiment of one of his leadership mantras: “Be strong, be kind.” Ardern’s effectiveness, coupled with strong responses from Germany’s Angela Merkel, Taiwanese Tsai Ing-Wen and others, even led some to question whether female leaders handled the pandemic better than men.
And now, her constituents have voted to keep her in command as New Zealand continues to weather Covid-19. With a majority in the country’s parliament, Labor will be able to form a one-party government that will give Ardern a greater ability to deliver on its priorities than it has in the past.
Despite this mandate, Ardern’s second term will bring new challenges, including repairing an economy weakened by successive lockdowns, and ensuring that his majority can deliver on their campaign promises. “It has significant political capital,” Jennifer Curtin, director of the Institute for Public Policy at the University of Auckland, told the Times. “He will have to deliver on his promises with more substance.”
But Ardern says she’s ready to go to work. The campaign slogan that led to her victory was simple: “Let’s keep moving.”
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