New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern surprised her country Thursday by announcing that she will resign from office next month, stressing that she does not have “enough energy” to continue ruling after five and a half years in power, nine months before the legislative elections.
“I’m a human being, we give everything we can for as long as we can and then the time comes, and for me the time has come,” Ardern told members of her Labor Party.
And she added, “I do not have enough energy for another four years,” noting that she will leave office on the seventh of February.
Ardern, 42, headed a coalition government in 2017 before leading her party to a landslide victory in elections held three years later.
During her reign, she faced the crisis of the Covid-19 epidemic, the eruption of a bloody volcano, and the worst attack the country has ever witnessed, the Christchurch massacre in 2019, which resulted in the killing of 51 Muslims in a mosque by an Australian affiliated with a group that believes in white supremacy.
Ardern is hugely popular abroad and has appeared on the covers of “Vogue” and “Time” magazines, and has long enjoyed a record approval rating in New Zealand. However, the popularity of her party and her personal popularity in opinion polls has declined recently, at a time when the economic situation was deteriorating and the right-wing opposition was regaining strength.
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