Good morning. The prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, shocked the world yesterday when she announced her resignation. Her reasoning was simple: “For me, it’s time. I just don’t have enough in the tank for another four years.” A perfectly reasonable explanation when your job has been leading a country of over five million people for over half a decade, with little to no real break, during an unprecedented pandemic. And, of course, she gave birth to her first child months after taking office.
In 2017, she became the world’s youngest female head of government, at 37 years old, making big promises about the changes that she would strive to make. Since that moment, Ardern developed a reputation as a leader capable of weathering crisis after crisis, centring empathy, humanity and compassion in her policies and decision-making. From her response to the Christchurch massacre, in which 51 Muslim New Zealanders died, to dealing with the White Island eruption less than a year later, and shepherding the country through Covid, Ardern will be hard to follow.
