Jacinda Ardern has announced her shock resignation as New Zealand Prime Minister, saying she “no longer has enough in the tank” to do the role justice.
Ms Ardern on Thursday told reporters her last day would be no later than February 7.
In an emotional speech at the New Zealand Labour party’s annual caucus meeting, the 42-year-old said it was “time” to step down.
Ms Ardern said: “I’m leaving, because with such a privileged role comes responsibility. The responsibility to know when you are the right person to lead and also when you are not. I know what this job takes. And I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It’s that simple.”
READ MORE: New Zealand premier Ardern cites Scotland in defence of Covid strategy
The outgoing prime minister, who was elected to the role at the age of 37 in October 2017, made history as the world’s youngest female head of government.
The next year, Ms Ardern made history again by giving birth while in office – making her the world’s second elected head of government to do so.
With Thursday’s announcement, Ms Ardern called for a general election on October 14.
She said she had given her “absolute all” during nearly six years in office but did not have the reserve to serve another term.
Ms Ardern had faced a tough election campaign this year.
Her liberal Labour Party won re-election two years ago in a landslide of historic proportions, but recent polls have put her party behind its conservative rivals.
Ms Ardern was lauded globally for her country’s initial handling of the coronavirus pandemic after New Zealand managed for months to stop the virus at its borders. But that zero-tolerance strategy was abandoned once it was challenged by new variants and vaccines became available.
READ MORE: 'Sorry, Nicola Sturgeon, but you’re no Jacinda Ardern'
She faced tougher criticism at home that the strategy was too strict.
Ms Ardern in December announced a Royal Commission of Inquiry would look into whether the government made the right decisions in battling Covid-19 and how it can better prepare for future pandemics. Its report is due next year.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel