New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern said she will quit as ahead of this year’s election because she no longer has “enough in the tank” to lead.
As Labour Party MPs vote to find her replacement on Sunday, Ms Ardern revealed how six “challenging” years in the job had had an adverse effect.
Interestingly, it has been made public that polling indicates the party faces a difficult path to re-election on 14 October.
Meanwhile, 42-year-old, Arden while having a closer look at her chances of continuing said she had taken time to consider her future over the summer break, hoping to find the heart and energy to go on in the role.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, she said, “But unfortunately I haven’t, and I would be doing a disservice to New Zealand to continue”.
Ms Ardern will step down by 7 February. If no would-be successor garners the support of two-thirds of the party room, the vote will go to Labour’s lay membership.
On her feat so far, she became the youngest female head of government in the world when she was elected prime minister in 2017, at the age of 37 and a year later she became the second elected world leader to ever give birth while in office, after Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto in 1990.
While in office, there were some significant moments, decisions and occurrences in the country that she would be remembered for. The deadly Covid-19 pandemic and its ensuing recession, the Christchurch mosque shootings, and the White Island volcanic eruption.
On her conclusion of her tenure as the PM, Ms Ardern said leading the country during “crisis” had been difficult as the past five-and-a-half years had been the “most fulfilling” of her life.
“These events… have been taxing because of the weight, the sheer weight and continual nature of them. There’s never really been a moment where it’s ever felt like we were just governing.”
