Jacinda Ardern wins landslide in New Zealand ‘Covid’ election
WELLINGTON: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern won a landslide victory in New Zealand’s general election yesterday, leveraging success battling Covid-19 to gain an unprecedented outright majority and the chance to implement her reform agenda.
With two thirds of the vote counted, Ms Ardern’s centre-left Labour Party was on 49.2% and forecast to take around 64 seats in the 120-member parliament. No leader has achieved an absolute majority since New Zealand adopted a proportional voting system in 1996, leading to a succession of multi-party governments. Even though the count was not finalised, the figures were enough for opposition leader Judith Collins to concede after phoning Ms Ardern.
“Congratulations on your result because it is, I believe, an outstanding result for the Labour Party. It has been a tough campaign,” Ms Collins told cheering supporters in Auckland.
Her conservative National Party was expected to take around 35 seats in what appears to be its worst result in nearly 20 years. Ms Ardern’s performance beat pre-election opinion polls and put Labour on course for its strongest showing since 1946.
Party president Claire Szabo praised the campaign of the charismatic leader, who sparked a wave of support dubbed “Jacinda-mania” when she took over the party in 2017 as it languished in polls.
“There’s no doubt the strong, great leadership we’ve had from Jacinda Ardern has been a massive factor in all this,” she told New Zealand.
Ms Ardern had dubbed the vote “the Covid election” and campaigned on her government’s success in eliminating community transmission of the virus, which has caused just 25 deaths in a population of five million. The pandemic is just one of a string of crises that showed Ms Ardern’s leadership qualities during a torrid first term.
Labour’s previous coalition partner New Zealand First, which achieved below the 5% needed to return to parliament, marked the end of the four-decade political career of its leader, Winston Peters.