New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden has announced her resignation ahead of this year’s election saying she no longer has enough in the tank to lead.
Her announcement came as polls showed the Labour party faces a difficult path to re-election on 14 October.
Ms Ardern 42, choked up as she explained how six “challenging” years in the job had taken a toll on her and added that she had taken time to consider her future over the Summer break hoping to find the energy to go on but hadn’t.
Labour MPs will vote to find her replacement on Sunday with Arden expected to step down by 7th February.
Ms Ardern became the youngest female head of government in the world when she was elected prime minister in 2017, aged 37. A year later she became the second elected world leader to ever give birth while in office, after Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto in 1990.
She steered New Zealand through the Covid-19 pandemic and its ensuing recession, the Christchurch mosque shootings, and the White Island volcanic eruption.
