by tubeswell » Fri Jan 20, 2023 12:47 am
She has been the most popular leader in NZ for most of the time she has been PM, and certainly ranks among the highest profile PMs NZ has ever had. She was the reason the Labour Govt got elected with an overall majority in the last (2020) election. Considering NZ adopted a proportional voting system (MMP) in 1996 and all NZ Governments since that time have been formed from various combinations of multi-party coalition (to form a majority voting block in Parliament), the fact that the 2020 Labour Government was the first Government since 1996 to be able to Govern alone without needing coalition partners was quite remarkable, and tells you how much sway Jacinda-mania had on voters. (Note - she was the leader of a multi-party coalition Government from 2017 to 2020, but the current triennial term of Government starting from 2020 has seen Labour able to govern alone).
She has been far more charismatic than any other leaders NZ (or the Labour Party) have had to offer in recent years, and her popularity is basically the reason Labour are in still power. She's been the face of Government for the last 5 years with prominent matter that have impacted dramatically on everyone's lives (Covid'n'all), and their big opportunity to push things through has been this (2020-2023) term while they have an absolute majority. However, they haven't really capitalised on that opportunity for various reasons, but largely due to a lack of capability in the rest of the Government caucus to be bold and actually 'do stuff'.
And of course, as has happened to many political leaders sooner or later, when the tide of popularity swings away from them, it tends to be a more intense swing if the leader was once really popular. Jacinda made quite a few promises to achieve changes in the quality of life of it's traditional left wing voting constituency (e.g. in reducing child poverty and improving affordable housing supply), and these haven't materialised. The fact that the Labour Government have had to manipulate child poverty and housing supply statistical indicators to make it look like they met their goals, has make a lot of people cynical about the virtuousness of the Party Leader.
Her ability to think on her feet and be articulate with in responding to media reporters etc contributes to her being the darling of the media. But simmering undercurrents of discontent in the last year or so have grown. Various intentions the Government has made (that she was the spokesperson for) have not materialised or have become stalled, and the Govt has partly resiled from other intentions (e.g. reducing Agricultural methane GHG emissions, in part due to their ineffectiveness of that policy globally in actual GHG reduction compared to the local economic costs. Which also points to badly thought out policy (as a result of an incompetent government policy making machine, which she had had the unfortunate challenge of having to be uncharge of). No wonder she was worn-down
Of course, its quite a bit more complicated than that, but that's the nub of it as I see the situation.
Now she has resigned, the talk about town is instantly on Labour losing the next election (because their success has largely been based on Jacinda's charisma - as opposed to policies).
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