New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern won a landslide victory in the general election Saturday (Oct. 17), gaining an absolute majority.
With two-thirds of the votes cast, her center-left Labor Party has won more than 49 percent of the vote and is on track to win about 64 of the country’s 120 seats.
The numbers are impressive enough that opposition leader Judith Collins has acknowledged her defeat and called Ardern to congratulate her.
In Oakland, Collins said, “Congratulations on your achievement, because I believe it’s an extraordinary result for the Labor Party. It was a tough campaign.”
Judith’s Conservative National Party will hold 35 seats, the party’s worst electoral result in nearly 20 years.
No party leader has won an absolute majority of seats since New Zealand adopted a mixed member proportional voting system in 1996, which has resulted in several coalition governments coming to power.
Ardern’s better-than-expected election result was probably the strongest victory for the Labour Party since 1946.
Her leadership during the coronavirus pandemic, which killed only 25 of the country’s five million people, was highly praised.
She has shown empathy and decisive action on gun control after a white supremacist gunman killed 51 Muslims in a mosque attack last year.
Ardern has also shown strong leadership in dealing with the aftermath of the eruption of the Isle of Wight (also known as Fakari) volcano, which killed 21 people and injured dozens more last December.
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