Jacinda Ardern

Jacinda Ardern is a former New Zealand politician. She became Labour leader shortly before the 2017 election and, at 37, prime minister at the head of a coalition, the world's youngest female head of government at the time. She governed through the March 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks, in which 51 people were murdered, the White Island eruption and the COVID-19 pandemic, and led Labour to a landslide in 2020 with about 50 percent of the party vote. She announced her resignation in January 2023, saying she no longer had "enough in the tank", and left parliament in April 2023. She has since held fellowships at Harvard, was appointed Special Envoy for the Christchurch Call and published a memoir, A Different Kind of Power, in 2025.

Admirers praise Ardern's response to the Christchurch attacks, including swift gun reform and the Christchurch Call, and her emphasis on kindness in leadership; even the opposition leader called her leadership after the attacks strong and compassionate. Critics argue she failed to deliver on her promises on housing, child poverty and inequality, and some commentators accused her of favoring empathetic messaging over substantive policy. Her strict lockdowns, vaccine mandates and managed isolation system drew criticism for their social costs, and in 2022 the High Court ruled that aspects of the isolation system breached human rights law. She faced a sharp rise in threats from anti-vaccine and conspiracy groups, and her approval had fallen to 29 percent by early 2023.