Berlin
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern surprisingly announced her resignation. The reasoning is surprising.
She had provided refreshingly different images on the international stage: New Zealand’s young head of government Jacinda Ardern became the world’s youngest prime minister in 2017 at the age of just 37. She later became a mother while in office. But now Ardern is retiring: On Thursday (local time) she announced that she would resign from office. “I know what it takes for this job and I know I don’t have enough left in the tank. It’s as simple as that,” she said through tears.
In two and a half weeks, on February 7, she wants to resign from office. “We all give as long as we can give and then it’s over. And for me it’s time now.” Her resignation will take effect upon the appointment of a successor. As early as Sunday, a new chairman of the labor party to get voted. At the same time, Ardern announced the date for the next parliamentary elections: The Pacific state will go to the polls on October 14th. Also read: “Arrogant Pimmel” scandal becomes a donation project
New Zealand: Jacinda Ardern is popular because of her empathetic nature
In New Zealand broke after her election at the time prime minister a true “Jacindamania”. With the birth of her daughter Neve in June 2018, she became the first prime minister in decades to become a mother while in office. Ardern has been with Neve’s father, journalist Clarke Gayford, since 2013.
Because of her empathetic nature and her successful crisis management, she quickly made a name for herself internationally. She won one in the October 2020 election landslide victory for Labor – and was re-elected for a further three years. Also interesting: New Zealand bans young people from smoking cigarettes
Ardern has had to overcome several serious crises in recent years. Especially the way you deal with them Christchurch attacks, in which a right-wing extremist from Australia shot 51 Muslims in two mosques in March 2019, also brought her a lot of recognition abroad. In December 2019, more than 20 people died in a volcanic eruption on White Island, and Corona struck a few months later.
Ardern’s government responded with one of the harshest curfews the world and closed off the country to foreign visitors. The result: New Zealand came through the pandemic relatively unscathed for a long time. For a long time, the citizens of the small country at the other end of the world lived a normality that was almost forgotten, while massive restrictions applied in most other countries. Read more: New Zealand court strips anti-vaccination child custody
After a year and a half, Ardern also had to admit that no country in the world can completely eradicate the corona virus in the long term. the “Zero Covid Strategy” was lifted at the end of 2021. She hopes, she said now about her resignation, that she has given the New Zealanders the belief that they can be their own kind of leader: “Someone who knows when it’s time to go.” (fmg/dpa)
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