Good riddance to Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s authoritarian in chief
Jon Miltimore
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A visibly emotional Jacinda Ardern announced on Thursday that she wouldn’t seek reelection as New Zealand’s prime minister, saying she, ahem, lacks the energy to pursue reelection in October.
“You cannot and should not do the job unless you have a full tank, plus a bit in reserve for those unplanned and unexpected challenges,” Ardern said.
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Ardern told reporters her term would end no later than Feb. 7, and while the move shocked many, it shouldn’t.
Ardern is deeply unpopular in New Zealand. A poll published last month showed her sporting a 29% approval rating among voters, which isn’t much higher than former President Richard Nixon’s before he resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal.
Ardern’s unpopularity is well earned. New Zealand’s business confidence recently notched its lowest mark in a half-century, Reuters reports — and for good reason. The country is on the brink of recession and battling the worst inflation it’s seen in decades. Food prices have been particularly alarming. Last month, the government released statistics showing an 11.3% increase from the previous year, the largest increase in 32 years.
How New Zealand finds itself in this economic quagmire is no mystery. Like many world leaders, Ardern embraced lockdowns as a mitigation strategy against COVID-19. Ardern’s decision to implement a total travel ban, completely closing New Zealand’s border to outside travel, earned her praise from media that applauded her policy of “strict lockdowns and austerity,” but sadly, it was unable to protect the country from COVID in the long run. Cases exploded in 2022, despite the presence of vaccines, killing thousands. And COVID cases in New Zealand are higher today than in the United States on a per capita basis.
Ardern was not the only world leader to implement these damaging policies, of course — but she pursued them with an enthusiasm matched by few others.
In August 2021, well after the damage of lockdowns had been thoroughly documented, Ardern ordered a “level 4” lockdown, the country’s most stringent, after a single case of COVID was detected in the country.
“Stay local. Do not congregate,” Ardern said. “Don’t talk to your neighbors. Please, keep to your bubbles.”
The lockdown included schools, where an abundance of data showed the virus rarely spread.
Ardern was hardly done, however. In March 2022, as the world was distracted by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, she ordered a crackdown on New Zealanders who had gathered outside of Parliament to protest the mandates.
“Police in riot gear cleared a protest camp outside New Zealand’s Parliament on Wednesday, sparking violent clashes that saw dozens arrested as protesters hurled bricks and set fire to their tents,” Michael E. Miller wrote in the Washington Post. “In what Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said was a planned operation to remove the camp, hundreds of officers assembled at dawn and began towing the cars and trucks demonstrators have used to block streets for more than three weeks, in imitation of the ‘Freedom Convoy’ in Canada.”
This kind of head-busting of protesters is typically something found more in banana republics than liberal democracies, but it helps explain why Ardern sees firearms as necessary only for the state — “for things like peace control and biodiversity.” And it fits with her larger track record of authoritarianism.
Not only did Ardern attempt to disarm her people largely, but she also called capitalism a “blatant failure,” left citizens stranded abroad during the pandemic, and embraced new speech laws with penalties of up to three years in prison and fines of up to $50,000. These policies might play well at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where Ardern gives speeches to great applause, but New Zealanders apparently hate them.
Ardern can claim all she wants that she’s leaving because she’s tired, but it’s far more likely she’s leaving because of her Nixon-like approval numbers. Bravo to New Zealanders for helping Ardern find the door, and let’s hope she’s not the last of the COVID tyrants to be humbled by the citizens they tormented with their senseless and arrogant policies.
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Jon Miltimore is the managing editor of the Foundation for Economic Education.