NZ’s post-COVID reality forces Ardern to step down
JACINDA Ardern had that star appeal — a young progressive politician who promised big changes to some of the most entrenched social issues facing her country.
The Labour leader had big ambitions to address child poverty and help New Zealanders afford a home, but in the end so much of her prime ministership was spent leading her country through crisis.
The Whakaari White Island disaster, the Christchurch terrorist attack and the COVID pandemic came to define her legacy at home and on the world stage.
But the popularity “Brand Ardern” has enjoyed internationally has been fading at home.
By the middle of last year there was speculation her time as the leader of New Zealand might soon come to an end.
Pundits pointed to the prime minister’s worsening polls and the fact the opposition had finally managed to get itself together enough to offer a legitimate alternative.
Perhaps with her star soaring so high, this would be the moment to take an international position, some analysts suggested.
The strict COVID policies of Ms Ardern’s government had divided her country and left it nearly impossible for the leader to deliver on the promises she made when the world was different.
On Thursday she said: “It’s one thing to lead your country through peacetime, it’s another to lead them through crisis. I had the privilege of being alongside New Zealand in a crisis and they placed their faith in me.”
“It is not an easy time. There are struggles out there. There is much work to be done.
“I know what this job takes, and I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It is that simple.”
The risks of ‘fortress NZ’
On the international stage, Ms Ardern’s tough COVID policies played as the strong leader keeping the virus out of her country and her people safe — and for a long time that was true.
But at home, that policy created risks for the leader — some political, others physical.
Fortress New Zealand became a “Trojan horse” for the country’s far right and tough vaccine mandates enabled that group to pick up more members from mainstream parts of society.
While the most extreme members of the so-called “freedom movement” sent Ms Ardern death threats, teachers and nurses protested beside them.
The political risk came when the walls of fortress New Zealand eventually came down, and Ms Ardern was faced with not only a series of unmet election promises, but rocketing inflation.
At the last election in late 2020, the Labour Party won enough support to govern on its own without needing to form a coalition — something that had not happened since proportional representation was introduced in New Zealand.
At the time, New Zealand was focused on the success of the government’s COVID elimination strategy, but circumstances have now changed.
University of Auckland political analyst Lara Greaves said polls now showed that if an election were held today, Labour would likely lose.
“A lot of the erosion of Ardern’s popularity, and Labour’s popularity, has been around not being really able to fight for the working class or the middle class ... or just really make their day-to-day lives easier in terms of their economic wellbeing and their ability to make ends meet,” she said.
In New Zealand, the election date is announced in January of the election year, no matter the date of the eventual vote.
So, Ms Ardern has been approaching the deadline for that announcement and if there were a logical time to step down, that would be it.
On Thursday, she announced the election would be on October 14 and that it would not be her taking the Labour Party to the campaign.
She said the task of winning the next election would be hard if her party were led by someone “who didn’t have enough in the tank”.
What was reported as a “shock resignation” was not as surprising at home.
“I would say this definitely seems like more of a surprise on the world stage,” Dr Greaves said.
“There’s been that kind of misalignment between what Ardern’s polls have looked like and the public perceptions of Ardern in New Zealand compared to what you see overseas.
“We really saw Arden’s Labour government come up against these realities of having to suddenly act like there had been no COVID crisis … to try to really have a policy platform and make transformational change, and they just really weren’t able to meet a lot of that.”
The challenge for New Zealand
In popular culture, New Zealand has become a place people want to move to when the world seems too difficult — a progressive haven at the bottom of the world.
In reality, life can be extremely difficult there.
Child poverty has marginally improved under Jacinda Ardern, but it is still far worse than most developed countries.
The New Zealand Human Rights Commission has launched an inquiry into the country’s housing crisis.
And despite Ms Ardern campaigning on a promise to improve public housing to a point that New Zealanders were not forced to live in their cars, government data showed that trend has got worse too.
Jacinda Ardern was last elected with a huge mandate and is arguably one of the world’s most popular political figures, so her resignation speaks to the grit and energy required to not just navigate a country through crisis, but to also tackle what comes next while delivering on the promises you made before.
“I think there are some clear and obvious criticisms around what she didn’t get done … but I think generally history will look at Ardern as the crisis prime minister”, Dr Greaves said.
To win from here would have been the fight of her political life. On Thursday she told New Zealand she did not have it in her.