Just over two years on from stepping down as Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern is awaiting the imminent release of her memoir titled Jacinda Ardern, A Different Kind of Power. The launch will be supported by a nine-night US and UK book tour. The marketing around both employs the ‘kind and empathic’ messaging now firmly cemented as her international brand. Eventbrite, for example, asks us to imagine “what if kindness came first?” Today, if you ask Meta AI or ChatGPT “what one word best describes Jacinda Ardern’s leadership style” they will both respond with “empathetic”.
These words do not, however, encapsulate her brand in New Zealand – despite still being pushed by the country’s media, academics and those inside the Wellington bubble. No, ordinary Kiwis have a different take on the former prime minister.
At the time of her resignation in January 2023, Ardern’s leadership was viewed as toxic. Her party was in free fall in the polls, having plunged from 60% in October 2020 to just 27% by late 2022. Even the publication Stuff, an unabashed cheerleader of the Ardern government, admitted earlier this month that job losses, skyrocketing inflation and interest rates, increases in the cost of living, a host of unpopular policies, her leadership style and Covid mandates that “fractured social cohesion” had all driven a collapse in Ardern’s popularity.
Interestingly, this was not the first time that Ardern had struggled in the polls. In late 2019, just two years after becoming prime minister, Ardern’s party was polling 7 per cent lower than their main rival, the National party. Enter Covid: Ardern’s saving grace. By mid-2020, Labour was soaring in the polls and went on to win the October 2020 general election – an electoral phenomenon replicated worldwide as people, subjected to intense Covid fearmongering, rewarded political incumbents....<<<Read More>>>...
