Jacinda leaves power praised abroad, but with low popularity in New Zealand

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s announcement that she will step down by February 7, failing to seek a third term, took many people by surprise — at home and abroad.

Reactions came from politicians such as US President Joe Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, but also figures such as American pop singer P!nk. “There will never be another like her,” he wrote on Twitter. “You have my admiration, respect and best wishes to you and your beautiful family.”

Messages like this are a sign of how, in just over five years in office, Jacinda has managed to build and consolidate an image that goes beyond politics —but that do not fully reflect the internal situation, in which the prime minister has been facing a series of of attrition, which dropped his popularity to the lowest rates since he took power.

One of the main reasons is the high cost of living. This Thursday (19), the local press reported that the price of food in December rose 11.3% in the accumulated 12 months, the highest rate in 32 years, forcing families to cut expenses.

The scenario is repeated in other major economies, which also see political upheavals. In the United Kingdom, for example, the accumulated inflation in 12 months until October reached 11.1%, the highest level since 1981. In the USA, it reached 9.1% last June, a record in 40 years. The numbers reflect the impact on production chains caused by the pandemic and the Ukrainian War, which paralyzed the economy for months and made many items and production stages more expensive.

“The individual who lived during globalization in a developed country is not used to this increase in prices”, says Vinícius Rodrigues Vieira, professor of international relations at FAAP (Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado). “Forty years ago, inflation was no more than double digits in the developed world.”

But in New Zealand, the relationship between the economy and the popularity of shift politicians, common to all countries, gains more weight and layers. First, because of its geographical isolation — the territory is made up of two large main islands in the Pacific Ocean.

Developed nations, recalls Vieira, over the years outsourced the production of industrialized products to countries with cheaper labor, increasing logistic dependency. “And the closest country there is Australia, which also has supply difficulties.”

Alongside its neighbor and Canada, the nation developed by maintaining an economy linked to agriculture, achieving a high level of productivity in the sector, and it imported the political model of the United Kingdom, with strong labor parties and organized around unions. “The sum of productivity and organization to demand rights culminated in the formation of a model of social well-being even with an industrialization below the average of Europe and the USA”, says Vieira.

There is also a marginal increase in violence in the country. “And she ends up being blamed for that. It’s not clear that she adopted policies that raised that number, which has more to do with the economic crisis; but violence always increases when the economy is bad”, says Eduardo Mello, professor of human relations. international studies at FGV (Fundação Getulio Vargas).

Thus, the situation hit Jacinda squarely. When announcing the plan to resign, this Thursday, still Wednesday night (18) in Brazil, she said she had no energy to continue in office. “I know what this job requires. And I know I no longer have the energy to do it well. It’s simple.”

When she came to power in 2017, she gained prominence for being the youngest chief executive in the world at the time. In the second year of her term, she gave birth and did not give up taking six weeks of maternity leave, leaving the country in the vice’s hands. During the pandemic, in 2020, she had tough positions on the measures to combat the coronavirus that put the country in the spotlight.

The consolidation of his image as a progressive icon took place in 2019, when he conveyed feelings of conciliation and national unity after the massacre of 51 people by an extremist in two mosques in the city of Christchurch. After the killings, semi-automatic weapons were banned in the country.

But wear and tear with the long-term maintenance of the Covid-zero strategy, exacerbated by the current economic situation, brought down its popularity. A poll released in December by Kantar One News Polling pointed out that only 29% of the population would choose Ardern to hold office once again – days before the October 2020 election, when she was re-elected with a historic margin, this index was 55%.

Although he was still six points ahead of his main opponent, Christopher Luxon, a parallel survey indicated that the approval of his Labor Party was already below that of the National Party – the center-right association that governed the country before his victory. These results triggered rumors that she might resign, even though over the last term she had not helped build a viable successor.

“The data reflect the migration of centrist voters, who were with the labor and passed to the National Party”, says Vieira. New Zealand politics, however, does not repeat the polarization of other countries, since the exchange of party preferences takes place between two mainstream acronyms.

The ACT, more to the right, and the Green Party, more to the left, did not have great popularity shocks, and the ultra-right does not have a strong partisan expression —although it reverberates to some extent in civil society and social networks, in which the resignation de Jacinda was cited as a “victory of freedom”.

In June last year, the British newspaper The Guardian reported that threats against the prime minister had almost tripled in three years, in a reaction to vaccination campaigns.

The resignation gives Labor the opportunity to build a narrative of change ahead of the October 14 election. “She is looking at the polls and knows she must lose. So, she gives her successor a chance to govern for a while and build popularity to try to save the party”, says Mello. “At the same time, coming out with relatively high popularity, it has a political future — perhaps outside the country.”

In her speech, Jacinda said that she believes in Labor’s victory. Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Grant Robertson has already said in a statement that he should not be the party’s candidate.