WELLINGTON, New Zealand –
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, whose empathetic response to the nation’s worst mass shooting and healthy response to the coronavirus pandemic made her an international icon but who has faced mounting criticism at home, said Thursday she is leaving the post.
Fighting back tears, Ardern told reporters in Napier that February 7 would be her last day as prime minister.
“I’m entering my sixth year in office, and for each of those years I’ve given my all,” she said.
She also announced that New Zealand’s next general election will be held on October 14 and that she will remain an MP until then.
It is not clear who will take over as prime minister until the election. Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson has announced he will not contest the leadership of the Labor Party, kicking off the race.
Ardern described her job as among the most privileged yet challenging, and said doing it required reserve to face the unexpected. She said she no longer has that reserve to last another term.
She said her time in office has been fulfilling but also challenging. “But I’m not leaving because it was hard. If that was the case, I’d probably be out of work for two months. I am leaving because with such a privileged role comes responsibility, the responsibility of knowing when you are the right person to lead and also when you are not. I know what this job requires and I know I don’t have enough left in the tank to do it justice. It’s that simple,” she said.
Ardern faced difficult election prospects. Her liberal Labor Party won re-election two years ago in a landslide victory of historic proportions, but recent polls have put her party behind its conservative rivals.
She was praised globally for her country’s initial handling of the coronavirus pandemic after New Zealand managed to contain the virus at its borders for months. But this zero-tolerance strategy was abandoned after it was challenged by new variants and vaccines became available.
She faced harsher criticism at home that the strategy was too strict.
In December, Ardern announced that a Royal Commission of Inquiry would look into whether the government had made the right decisions in the fight against COVID-19 and how it could better prepare for future pandemics. The report is due next year.
In March 2019, Ardern faced one of the darkest days in New Zealand history when a white supremacist gunman stormed two mosques in Christchurch and killed 51 people. She was widely praised for the way she embraced survivors and the Muslim community in New Zealand in the aftermath.
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