Skip to main content

Advertisement

Advertisement

New Zealand’s incoming PM Jacinda Ardern, 37, will be world’s youngest female leader

WELLINGTON — The 37-year-old daughter of a New Zealand police officer is set to join a new generation of leaders overturning the political establishment in some of the world’s most-developed countries.

Ms Jacinda Ardern talking to the media on Thursday, Oct 19, 2017, in Wellington, New Zealand. Ms Ardern will be New Zealand’s next prime minister and hopes to take the country on a more liberal path following nine years of rule by the conservatives. Photo: AP

Ms Jacinda Ardern talking to the media on Thursday, Oct 19, 2017, in Wellington, New Zealand. Ms Ardern will be New Zealand’s next prime minister and hopes to take the country on a more liberal path following nine years of rule by the conservatives. Photo: AP

Follow TODAY on WhatsApp

WELLINGTON — The 37-year-old daughter of a New Zealand police officer is set to join a new generation of leaders overturning the political establishment in some of the world’s most-developed countries.

Ms Jacinda Ardern will become the world’s youngest female leader after cutting a deal to form a coalition government in New Zealand. Her swift rise to power, less than three months after taking the reins of the struggling Labour Party, has drawn comparisons with the generational shift seen in Austria, Ireland, Canada and France.

“There has been a total reorientation to politics by the public since the global financial crisis,” said Mr Bryce Edwards, a political scientist at Victoria University in Wellington. “They are no longer bound by the idea that politicians need to have experience, or age or strong credentials.”

Ms Ardern has electrified supporters since becoming Labour leader on Aug 1, stirring up what the media dubbed “Jacinda-mania” as she pledged to tackle social issues such as child poverty and affordable housing. She transformed the centre-left party’s poll ratings, which had slumped to 24 per cent, roughly half of outgoing Prime Minister Bill English’s National Party.

Although Labour finished second in the Sept 23 election, National failed to secure a majority — leaving both needing the backing of the New Zealand First party to take office. After 12 days of negotiations, the small, nationalist party’s leader Winston Peters threw his support behind Ms Ardern, saying that capitalism needed to regain its “human face”.

The local currency plunged 1.7 per cent on Thursday (Oct 19), amid concerns the new government’s policies, such as a potential cut in immigration, may curb economic growth. The kiwi traded at 70.28 US cents as of 12.50pm in Wellington on Friday (Oct 20). Stocks also dropped, with the S&P/NZX 50 Gross Index ending a 13-day winning streak and falling 1 per cent in early trading.

Even though New Zealand’s economy has grown strongly under National, which returned the budget to surplus, Ms Ardern has argued that too many people have been left behind during the party’s three terms in office. Labour and New Zealand First both campaigned on reducing immigration, increasing home construction and reforming the central bank.

Ms Ardern said on Friday that New Zealand First will hold four Cabinet positions, while Labour’s traditional ally the Greens will lead three of eight ministerial portfolios outside the Cabinet. Details of final policies will be announced next week, though Ms Ardern said her campaign pledges for Labour’s first 100 days in office were “pretty much intact”.

Ms Ardern takes Labour into office for the first time in nine years, with her coalition controlling 63 of 120 seats in Parliament. No party has won an outright majority since New Zealand introduced proportional representation in 1996.

Ms Ardern provided a lightning rod for dissatisfaction with the status quo. While the economy grew at 2.5 per cent in the year through June, there is mounting disquiet about the widening gap between rich and poor. One in five Kiwi children live in households with incomes below the poverty line and 8 per cent face severe material hardship, according to the Salvation Army.

Her rise suggests an appetite for generational change, as was the case with President Emmanuel Macron in France and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Canada, who has already tweeted his congratulations to Ms Ardern. She will be New Zealand’s youngest leader since 1856.

Ms Ardern was brought up a Mormon but later left the church. Known to DJ at local music events, Ms Ardern calls herself “a socially liberal person”. She will replace Mr English, 55, a practicing Catholic with six children and conservative social views, and who has been in Parliament since Ms Ardern was 10 years old.

She lives with her boyfriend, and had previously said she wouldn’t seek the party leadership because she wanted to have children. Asked again about motherhood just hours after becoming the Labour leader, Ms Ardern won plaudits from supporters and opponents alike, saying it’s a dilemma that many women face and “you’ve just got to take every day as it comes”.

However, it was “totally unacceptable in 2017 to say that women should have to answer that question in the workplace”, she said.

As a student, Ms Ardern developed an early social conscience after noticing some children arrived at school without shoes or anything to eat for lunch.

“Though I was very young, I still have very clear memories of seeing things that just struck me as being unfair,” Ms Ardern said in an interview after becoming Labour leader. “Things like that, I would say, probably sparked my interest in politics.”

After a stint working for then Prime Minister Helen Clark in 2005, Ms Ardern went abroad, working briefly in a soup kitchen in New York before spending several years in London as a civil servant during the final years of former British prime minister Tony Blair’s premiership. She returned to New Zealand and entered Parliament after the 2008 election, which Ms Clark lost.

Labour had been in turmoil ever since, changing leaders five times in nine years and slumping to its worst defeat since 1922 at the previous election.

“It is an absolute honor and a privilege to have the ability to form a government for all New Zealanders,” Ms Ardern told reporters after Mr Peters made his choice. BLOOMBERG

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.