WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Saturday launched her re-election campaign promising a “laser-like” focus on boosting jobs and economic growth hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
PHOTO PHOTO: Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern during a news conference prior to the anniversary of the mosque attacks that took place the previous year in Christchurch, New Zealand, 13 March 2020. REUTERS / Martin Hunter
The charismatic 40-year-old leader is on track for a landslide victory in the 19 elections, according to opinion polls, after she won worldwide praise for her leadership during the coronavirus pandemic.
It’s 99 days since New Zealand had every domestic COVID-19 transmission, a rare achievement because the pandemic smells global, and it has reopened the economy after undergoing a complete shutdown to remove the coronavirus. .
“If people are asking, ‘Is this a COVID election, then my answer is yes, that’s it,” Ardern told her supporters gathered in Auckland ahead of the launch of her Party’s re-election campaign.
In its first campaign speech, Ardern promised a NZ $ 311 million ($ 205.32 million) scheme aimed at getting 40,000 Kiwis back to work, if their party wins the September 19 polls.
The funding will allow companies a subsidy averaging NZ $ 7500, and up to NZ $ 22,000, to hire unemployed New Zealanders.
“The new Flexi pay scheme is an important part of our economic plan to support companies to recover and provide jobs to those who have lost jobs because of Covid,” Ardern said.
New Zealand has been the envy of the world after COVID-19 was eliminated from its shores and its economy successfully reopened when most of the world was still closed.
Recent data suggest that COVID-19 unemployment was not as severe as expected, and business confidence had improved due to the government’s harsh and early response to the pandemic.
Introduced to the stage by her partner and fiancé Clark Gayford, Ardern spoke of her unexpected rise to power in 2017, and her handling of a series of tragedies – a mass shooting at Christchurch mosques, the deadly volcanic eruption on White Island and this year.
“If you had told me then that our launch in 2020 would be in the middle of a global pandemic with our borders close – I would have found that very difficult to grasp,” she said.
Ardern’s stratospheric rise in 2017 to become New Zealand’s youngest prime minister and third woman to run the bureau has been described by some as “Jacinda-mania”.
($ 1 = 1.5147 New Zealand dollars)
Report by Swati Pandey in Sydney and Praveen Menon in Wellington ;; Edited by Michael Perry
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