'It’s time...’: New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern to resign next month
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she still believed New Zealand Labor would win the upcoming election, due this year. "For me it's time," she said at a meeting of members of her Labour Party. "I just don't have enough in the tank for another four years."
FollowNew Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Thursday she will resign next month. “For me it’s time," she said at a meeting of members of her Labour Party. “I just don’t have enough in the tank for another four years."
Recent surveys show a decline in Ardern's popularity as well as that of her party and herself. Ardern was appointed prime minister in a coalition government in 2017 and then led her center-left Labour Party to a resounding win in an election three years later.
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She stated during Labour's annual caucus retreat that she had hoped to find the energy to continue as leader over the break, "but I have not been able to do that", in her first public appearance since the start of the summer holiday in parliament a month earlier ".
Ardern stated that she will continue to serve as an electorate MP until the upcoming general election, which will take place on Saturday, October 14. "I'm not going because I think we won't win the next election; I'm leaving because I think we will," she added.
The Labour caucus will vote on a new leader on January 22, according to Ardern, who also stated that her departure would be effective no later than February 7. Grant Robertson, the deputy prime minister, said that he would not be running.
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