There aren’t many political leaders, particularly in our neck of the woods, who leave on their own terms, at a time of their own choosing.
Sir Robert Menzies was the last Australian prime minister to do so in 1966, but even his departure was largely due to failing health.
She won’t contest the October 14 election, and with flagging popularity, critics claim she’s jumping before voters had the chance to turf her out.
She fought back tears to reveal that after a tumultuous and demanding five and a half years in office, she was spent.
She didn’t have enough left in the tank to do the job justice, so it was time to make way for someone else. She’s getting out.
Jacinda Ardern is a polarising figure.
She’s been likened to US President Barack Obama: full of promise and hope but failing to deliver on those high expectations.
She’s held up as a saint-like by some on the progressive side of politics, and gained worldwide praise for her leadership during some of New Zealand’s darkest times.
She delivered poise and grace in the wake of the country’s worst massacre in Christchurch, embracing victims’ families, and sharing the grief we were all feeling.
It was a similar sentiment after the deadly White Island volcano disaster.
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She led her country through the worst of COVID-19, and voters repaid her with a resounding win at the last election. It was a landslide victory.
In recent times though, with the New Zealand economy flagging, job shortages, and cost of living pressures biting, Jacinda Ardern has been more popular on the world stage than at home.
This is an election she would have struggled to win. Now it’s up to someone else.
When she first came into office at the age of 37, Jacinda Ardern was the youngest female head of government anywhere in the world at the time.
She also became just the second woman to ever give birth while in office, famously taking her new baby girl with her onto the floor of the United Nations General Assembly.
She’s now looking forward to seeing that baby, Neve, who’s now four years old, start school, and she will finally marry her long term partner, Clarke Gayford, after the pandemic forced them to postpone the wedding they’d planned in January last year.
When asked how she would like to be remembered, Jacinda Ardern replied “as someone who always tried to be kind”.
Kindness isn’t a quality that first springs to mind when thinking of political leaders, but perhaps it’s something more should be brave enough to adopt.
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