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Reuters
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has postponed the country’s general election by a month amid a spike in coronavirus cases.
The vote was due to take place on September 19, but will now be held on October 17 instead.
Ms Ardern said on Monday that the new date would allow parties “to plan around the range of circumstances in which we will campaign”.
Earlier this week, the country’s largest city went back into lockdown.
“This decision gives all parties time in the next nine weeks to campaign and the Election Commission enough time to ensure that an election can proceed,” Ms Ardern said, adding that she “had absolutely no intention” of further delays. ” to allow the vote.
The opposition National Party has argued that the election should be delayed because restrictions on campaigning meant Ms Ardern had an unfair advantage.
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Restrictions were placed on Auckland on Wednesday after a number of new infections in the city were identified. A total of 49 cases linked to one cluster were found up to and including Sunday.
The outbreak was initially traced back to members of one household, although Ms Ardern later said subsequent contact tracing had found an earlier case involving a shop worker who fell ill on July 31.
A health official who knew the family told the New Zealand Herald that the family was “shell-shocked” and “a little embarrassed that it happened to them”.
The announcement that new cases were being discovered shocked the country, which had not recorded any locally transferred cases for more than three months.
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There are four “alert levels” in New Zealand, and Auckland has been at level 3 since the new measures were announced. The rest of the country is at level 2.
Before the new cluster was identified, the government had lifted almost all of its lifting restrictions, which were first imposed in March.
New Zealand has reported 1,622 infections and 22 deaths since the pandemic began, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.
An early lockdown, severe border restrictions, effective health messages and an aggressive test-and-trace program were all credited with effectively eliminating the virus in the country.
