New Zealand's Ardern storms to re-election with 'be strong, be kind' mantra [View all]

[Eugene]

Last edited Sat Oct 17, 2020, 09:33 AM - Edit history (1)

Source: Reuters

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Jacinda Ardern turned speaking from the heart and smiling through adversity into a winning formula for a blowout re-election as New Zealand’s leader on Saturday.

Now Ardern, who made a name for herself by crushing COVID-19 in the country and healing the nation after a massacre of Muslims by a white supremacist, faces a challenge to show her leadership extends beyond crisis management and kindness.

Her Labour Party won a landslide victory in the general election, a resounding mandate that ushers in New Zealand’s first purely left-leaning government in decades and may allow her to form a single-party government.

The win is also the reward for Ardern’s leadership through a series of extraordinary events that shaped her first three-year term: the gunman’s massacre of 51 worshippers at two Christchurch mosques and the eruption of the White Island volcano, which killed 21.

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OCTOBER 17, 2020 7:34 AM UPDATED 2 HOURS AGO
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Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-newzealand-election-newsmaker/new-zealands-ardern-storms-to-re-election-with-be-strong-be-kind-mantra-idUSKBN2720HI

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EDIT: updated with newer Reuters article

Original Reuters article:

Ardern wins landslide re-election in New Zealand vote

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s centre-left Labour Party won a landslide victory in New Zealand’s general election on Saturday as voters rewarded her for a decisive response to COVID-19.

The mandate means Ardern, 40, could form the first single-party government in decades, and face the challenge of delivering on the progressive transformation she promised but failed to deliver in her first term, where Labour shared power with a nationalist party.

“This is a historic shift,” said political commentator Bryce Edwards of Victoria University in Wellington, describing the vote as one of the biggest swings in New Zealand’s electoral history in 80 years.

Labour was on track to win 64 of the 120 seats in the country’s unicameral parliament, the highest by any party since New Zealand adopted a proportional voting system in 1996.

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Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-newzealand-election/ardern-wins-landslide-re-election-in-new-zealand-vote-idUSKBN2712ZE