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Jacinda Ardern has tears in her eyes when she announces one of the most important decisions of her life on Thursday. After five and a half years marked by crises and catastrophes, she has had enough. “I know what you need for this job and I know that I don’t have enough left in the tank,” said Ardern during a press conference. Politicians are only human.
Ardern said she hadn’t told her five-year-old daughter Neve beforehand. Because small children are known for “the fact that they like to chat”. Neve was a key reason for Ardern to step down from the highest political office. She wants to be there when the child experiences its first day in kindergarten.
Emotions marked the police officer’s daughter’s path through politics, as a young socialist and finally as head of government. After her predecessor at the head of the Labor Party resigned because of abysmal poll numbers, she took over as his deputy leader. Shortly thereafter she was elected – and in 2017, at the age of 37, was the youngest prime minister in the world.
Enthusiasm got a name: Jacindamania
There were several strokes of fate that made the name Ardern known far beyond the borders and gave her the greatest reputation at home, often also among political opponents. The media invented a word for the collective excitement: jacindamania.
The world first met Jacinda Ardern when she comforted the families of victims of a racially motivated terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch in 2019. Tragically, giving comfort became something of a trademark for the young politician. When a volcano erupted a few months later, 22 people died. Ardern was there, hugging the survivors and comforting those who had lost loved ones.
But to reduce Ardern’s popular success to a series of high-profile tragedies would be wrong. The politician was a very effective and efficient leader. Observers around the world marveled at the chutzpah with which she pushed through an almost complete sealing of the borders to prevent the outbreak of Covid-19.
Apartments are still too expensive
There is likely to be speculation in the coming days as to whether Ardern pulled the emergency brake because of poor Labor Party poll numbers ahead of the October elections. In fact, the reputation of Ardern and her party has fallen significantly. A massive increase in the cost of living – not least as a result of Covid and the Ukraine war – has made life worse for many people in the antipode state.
But no problem is as big and, for many Kiwis, as frustrating as the one that Ardern inherited from the previous Conservative government: for many, apartment rents have become too expensive. The dream of owning a home has long since died for most people. The monumental task of alleviating the housing crisis was an issue Jacinda Ardern had little time for.
Whether terror, volcano or Covid: “I never really had the feeling that we were just governing,” she said. And now she has no strength. “We all give as long as we can give and then it’s over. And now is the time for me.”