A day after winning a second term in a landside victory, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern yesterday said she sees the election result as an endorsement of her government’s efforts to stamp out COVID-19 and reboot the economy.
Speaking at a cafe near her Auckland home, Ardern said she expects to form a new government within three weeks and to prioritize work on the virus response.
“We’re cracking on very quickly with the work we need to do as a new team,” Ardern said.
Photo: AFP
Her comments came as health officials reported one new case of community transmission after New Zealand went three weeks without any new infection.
Officials said the man works on foreign ships at the ports, and they believe they caught his case early enough to contain the threat of further spread.
In the election, Ardern’s liberal Labour Party got 49 percent of the vote, its best election performance since 1946, crushing the conservative National Party, which got 27 percent, its second-worst showing since it was founded in 1936.
Ardern said the margin of the victory exceeded their expectations.
The result will give Labour an outright majority in parliament, the first time any party has achieved that since New Zealand implemented a proportional voting system 24 years ago.
Asked what she would say to those Americans who may draw inspiration from her win ahead of the US elections, Ardern said she hoped people globally could move past the partisan divisions that elections often accentuate.
“That can be damaging for democracy, regardless of the side of the House that you sit on,” she said.
Arden said she had been congratulated on her win by a number of world leaders, including the UK, Denmark, Canada and Spain.
Asked if she planned to run again, Ardern laughed.
“I’ve just run in 2020. I haven’t yet taken a weekend,” she said. “I’m enjoying this moment.”
Meanwhile, National Party leader Judith Collins said Ardern’s win meant she could no longer blame coalition partners for frustrating her progressive agenda, because she now had a free hand to do as she pleased.
“The government has got the mandate to do all the things that they’ve promised to do, so they can’t blame anyone else for not delivering,” she told reporters.
Collins said she would remain as National leader, but commission an independent review into how the party’s vote slumped almost 18 points from the 2017 election.
Additional reporting by AFP
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