In a pleasant change for this column from first-past-the-post, an exercise in proportional representation has brought a 37-year-old Prime Minister to power in New Zealand/Aotearoa – the country’s youngest in 150 years – with the support of the Green and New Zealand First parties.
The charismatic and relentlessly positive Jacinda Ardern came out of nowhere to snatch victory from Bill English’s conservative National Party. While Ardern’s Labour Party finished around seven percentage points behind the front-running Nationals, her ability to make common cause with the other two main parties put her in the driver’s seat, charged with bringing about a change for the 56 per cent of New Zealanders who had voted for one.
