[ad_1]
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern scored a historic election victory and said she will use her mandate to rebuild an economy hit by the coronavirus pandemic and address social inequality.
The Ardern Labor Party won the first absolute majority in Parliament since the introduction of proportional representation in 1996 and, if preliminary results hold, the most votes in more than 70 years. While Ardern is expected to invite the Green Party into his new administration, he does not need them to govern and said he needs time to take stock.
“There is a lot of work to be done in the next three years,” Ardern told fans on Saturday night in Auckland. “We are going to rebuild better after the COVID crisis. This is our opportunity to build an economy that works for all. We have a mandate to accelerate our response and our recovery.”
Ardern, 40, has conquered New Zealand’s sacred political center ground with a combination of empathetic leadership and skillful crisis management that has also earned him fame abroad. His successful handling of the coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated those strengths, drowning out criticism that he has failed to deliver on some key promises during his first term in office.
Preliminary results give Ardern 64 of 120 seats in Parliament. Labor won 49% of the vote after a big swing to the left in many urban and provincial electorates. The opposition National Party fell to 27%, its worst result since 2002. Final results, including 480,000 special votes, will be delivered on November 6.
Ardern will now have more leeway to deliver on the transformative government she promised when she came to power three years ago, particularly if the Greens can pressure her to be more progressive on issues like poverty and climate change.
Still, he will be careful to alienate the many center-right voters he has won over National at a time when debt is mounting due to the government’s pandemic response.
Government ministers were coy on Sunday about what the new administration will look like and whether it will move to the left or focus on central ground.
“We have a lot of work to do to keep the faith of many people who have come across and voted for us perhaps for the first time,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson told TVNZ. “We want to be a government for all of Zealand.”
Voters are rewarding Ardern for crushing community transmission of COVID-19 as countries like the United Kingdom, the United States, and even neighboring Australia still struggle to contain the virus.
Ardern stood alone among her Western peers in pursuit of an explicit elimination strategy and imposed one of the strictest national closures in the world.
The economy suffered its most severe contraction since the Great Depression, falling 12.2% in the second quarter, but the lockdown eliminated the spread of the virus in the community and restrictions were lifted earlier than in many other countries. After more than 100 days without community transmission, an outbreak broke out in the largest city of Auckland, but it was also quickly eliminated.
The nation of 5 million people had gone three weeks without a case in the community until today, when a new case was reported in Auckland. New Zealand has recorded only 25 deaths from coronavirus.
National Party leader Judith Collins said she will not retire after the defeat and will work to rebuild her party.
Collins, who fought to gain ground against the popular Ardern during the campaign, pointed to the economic challenges the nation faces as it recovers from the pandemic.
“New Zealand is facing a difficult economic journey and will need better fiscal policy than we have seen so far,” he said.
National has been in disarray, changed leaders twice this year and suffered a series of scandals that eroded its claim to be a stronger team than Labor and a better economic manager.
On the contrary, Ardern has been harassed by crowds on the election campaign in a rerun of the “Jacinda-mania” that was first seen in 2017.
The challenges that lie ahead are enormous. The border remains closed to foreigners, paralyzing the key tourism industry, and unemployment is forecast to rise.
Unions are promising massive spending on infrastructure to boost the economy and have said they will impose a higher income tax rate of more than NZ $ 180,000 ($ 120,000) a year to generate more income. But Ardern has ruled out implementing the wealth tax proposed by the Greens, who will have 10 seats in Parliament after winning 7.5% of the vote.
Green Party co-leader James Shaw said he hoped to hold talks with the Labor Party in the coming weeks.
“There are good reasons why they could ask us to join them in the next government,” he told TVNZ on Sunday. “They will want the widest possible majority.”
Under New Zealand’s electoral system, parties must win 5% of the vote or one seat in the electorate to enter parliament.
Current Labor coalition partner New Zealand First got just 2.7%, lowering the curtain on the four-decade political career of its leader Winston Peters, who served as Ardern’s deputy minister and foreign minister.
The small Maori Party may have secured a seat with a narrow victory in an electorate that will need to be confirmed once the special votes are counted.
