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Jacinda Ardern, the once-celebrated leftwing retort to world leaders like Trump and Bojo has seen a serious reversal in fortune.
Right-track/wrong track estimates of her leadership went from 70% favorable at the beginning of 2021 to about 30% favorable now.
She led her country to adopt some of the most aggressive lockdown policies in the world. Despite having many global news sources celebrate that response, an investigation into that response was launched last month.
That zero-tolerance strategy was initially hailed internationally as a success because New Zealand’s death rate remained much lower than in most other countries and people were able to continue life much as normal.
But over time, the downsides of the elimination approach came into clearer focus as the economic and social costs rose. Some citizens faced big delays returning home due to a bottleneck at border quarantine facilities.
The government eventually abandoned its elimination approach in October 2021 after new and more contagious variants proved impossible to contain and people were given the chance to get vaccinated. — ABCNews
The financial hangover from C-19 policies lingers on, and inflation is among the reasons voters have been unhappy. Her party trails in the polls and now with an October election looming … she is announcing a quick exit.
She won big in the last election as a young outsider and unknown quantity. If she were to run for reelection, it would have to be on her record, not media hype. But it’s not about unfavorability, she assures us. She’s just burnt out.
At the party’s first caucus meeting of the year on Thursday, Ardern said she “no longer had enough in the tank” to do the job. “It’s time,” she added.
“I’m leaving, because with such a privileged role comes responsibility – the responsibility to know when you are the right person to lead and also when you are not. I know what this job takes. And I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It’s that simple,” she said.
Her term as prime minister will conclude no later than 7 February but she will continue as an MP until the election this year.
“I am human, politicians are human. We give all that we can for as long as we can. And then it’s time. And for me, it’s time,” she said.
…“This has been the most fulfilling five and a half years of my life. But it’s also had its challenges – among an agenda focused on housing, child poverty and climate change, we encountered a … domestic terror event, a major natural disaster, a global pandemic, and an economic crisis,” she said.
Asked how she would like New Zealanders to remember her leadership, Ardern said “as someone who always tried to be kind”.
“I hope I leave New Zealanders with a belief that you can be kind, but strong, empathetic but decisive, optimistic but focused. And that you can be your own kind of leader – one who knows when it’s time to go,” Ardern said. — TheGuardian
We’ll leave our readers to decide which parts of this announcement are the truth and which are just political spin.
But in light of her role in the COVID shutdowns, we once affirm what we’ve been saying all along…
Dear Christian: Your Fear Is Full of Crap
by Doug Giles
Beginning in March 2020, many Christians went into lockdown-freak-out mode. Uncut, irrational, unbiblical, and not to mention, unconstitutional, fear gripped many churches and church leaders. Forced to choose between obeying the Word of God or the edict of man, most Western Churches buckled. We even saw it here in First Amendment-protected America.
The Apostle Peter buckled to fear on the night of Christ’s crucifixion. But he learned his lesson and lived the rest of his life bold as a lion. How can the church ‘go and do likewise’?
Read the book and find out!
Get your copy of Dear Christian: Your Fear Is Full of Crap now. Better yet, grab an extra copy for any petrified pastor who dutifully put obedience to the unconstitutional edicts of Mayor McCheese ahead of obedience to the explicit commandments of the LORD God Almighty.
