Jacinda Ardern’s thumping NZ election victory puts the future in her hands
Despite a policy-lite platform, Jacinda Arden’s thumping victory hands her unprecedented transformational power in New Zealand. What will she do with it?
New Zealand today awoke to land where the Labour Party will rule from a position of great strength after it claimed a landslide victory in the 2020 election. Last night, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her party won enough support to govern alone. And while Ms Ardern refused last night to be drawn on the matter, it remains likely that she will reach out to the left wing Green Party to form a coalition government.
In other election news, the opposition National Party saw its vote collapse in dramatic fashion slumping to its worst result in years.
The Greens and the right-wing, libertarian ACT party both had great elections, each accruing 10 parliamentary seats.
And one of the biggest figures in the country’s political history, Winston Peters, is likely to step off the stage after his New Zealand First party failed to secure a return to parliament.
John F. Kennedy once said that victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.
Taking the quote slightly out of context, Ms Ardern’s mammoth win last night equally had many fathers.
Victory was claimed largely on the back of her intense popularity. Ms Ardern. was her party’s most important electoral asset. She was met with great enthusiasm, even reverence, across the campaign trail and in almost all parts of society.
Through election night, as it become quickly became clear that Labour were solidifying its path to landslide territory, party supporters and MPs gave open and abundant praise and gratitude to their leader for delivering victory.
Labour blatantly, and understandably, leveraged its leader’s popularity to its advantage.
On the other side, National leader Judith Collins ran a policy campaign largely because it knew it could not compete in the personal popularity stakes with Ms Ardern.
But it seemed the voting public cared less about policy and more about personality. Fortunately for Labour, it ran new policy-lite campaign. When it did talk about policy at length, the party often referenced programmes already established and well underway – programmes it knew that country did not really mind.
Mrs Collins was almost the anti-Jacinda. She was tough, bruising and gladiatorial to Ms Ardern’s warmth and repeated calls to the better angels of New Zealanders. The voting public clearly liked the latter.
This election was also about trust, leadership and communication.
All three factors were thrust to the very centre of the campaign by the COVID-19 crisis and all three were particular strengths of Ms Ardern’s in the eyes of voters.
Indeed, her stunning re-election was the voters’ reward for what they saw as her adroit handling of the response and recovery to the crisis. It was instrumental. National were always running into a fierce headwind leading up to the election. For one, getting sufficient airtime was difficult and, at times, outside of the control of National and other parties. Ms Ardern has for most of the year dominated the airwaves as the coronavirus struck the country. Her regular
televised briefings to the country were both soothing and authoritative, and while neither political in tune or tone they most certainty underscored her leadership during a time of great uncertainty for New Zealanders.
The power of incumbency and the podium should not be under-estimated.
Another headwind for National was time, or lack thereof. Mrs Collins only became party leader in mid July after Todd Muller abruptly stepped aside for personal reasons after just 53 days at the helm. Muller left the party trailing Labour by a substantial margin.
Mrs Collins came very late to the game against a power opposition, well behind on the scoreboard and the clock ticking down to fulltime.
Continuing the metaphor, Nikki Kaye – a former National cabinet minister – last night expressed sympathy for Collins saying that she “received a hospital pass” as leader.
Yet despite the crushing disappointment the politician nicknamed “Crusher”, Mrs Collins will relish more time to make her case for the top job. She did, after all, pledge to be a "robust opposition” during her concession speech.
Her party was also troubled by the perception of disunity and dysfunction – not helped by the fact that Collins is third party leader this year and there were various reports on ongoing infighting over policy development during the campaign.
Probably with that in mind, Mrs Collins told party supporters last night that National will remerge from this loss “a stronger, disciplined and more connected party”.
However, the loss is a staggering one for the party. It’s National’s worse loss since the 2002 election and could spin the party into the wilderness for years as it re-groups and replenishes.
That Labour made several successful forays into National’s rural heartland will be particularly distressing to the party and it will need to be addressed before it seeks to regain strength.
But not all is lost for the centre-right of New Zealand politics. ACTs strong showing at the election means support for free market solutions and smaller government, among other things, remains in a part of the electorate. It’s just smaller part after last night.
Last night, however, also revealed a large progressive swing for New Zealand and looking ahead, Labour now has an incredibly strong mandate to deliver rapid and substantial change to the country – if it wishes.
The party is sitting as firmly in the driving sitting as any in the modern era.
“Our plan is already in action and already working, but after this result we have the mandate to accelerate our response and our recovery, and tomorrow we start,” Ardern said in her victory speech in Auckland.
Yet, despite Labour overwhelming its opponents dramatic change is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
Ms Ardern is, by nature and necessity, a consensus builder and will likely not move towards large-scale change or disruption faster than the country is comfortable with. Such a move would jeopardise her standing with voters — one of the main reasons for her party’s success at the polls.
By and large, Ms Ardern has been a prime minister who governed pragmatically and from the centre. And in her victory speech, she committed to continue as one.
As shown by her government’s response to the COVID-19 crisis, she is capable of rapid and bold to acts.
But, the next term will likely be more about adjusting existing programmes and introducing a few new policies, rather than supplanting everything with a new agenda affecting great political movement.
Ms Ardern has a lot of political capital and that she might be looking to spend it after the next election to establish the basis for transformational change to New Zealand.
She will surely understand that going hard and fast in the realm of public health – as she did to address the COVID-19 crisis — is often not as profitable as doing the same in the realm of politics.
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