New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to resign after five years in office

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says she is stepping down next month.

The 42-year-old leader said she’ll leave office by Feb. 7. New Zealand’s general elections are scheduled for Oct. 14.

“I know what this job takes, and I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice,” she told reporters at a press conference Thursday local time in Napier. “It is that simple.”

Ardern became the youngest female head of state in the world when she was elected in 2017 at age 37.

She said the ensuing years had been filled with constant challenges.

“I am not leaving because it was hard,” Ardern said. “Had that been the case, I probably would have departed two months into the job. I am leaving because with such a privileged role comes responsibility, the responsibility to know when you are the right person to lead and also, when you are not.”

Ardern said she began reconsidering her career future during the New Zealand government’s recent summer break, the BBC reported.

“I had hoped that I would find what I needed to carry on over that period,” she said, according to the outlet. “Unfortunately, I haven’t, and I would be doing a disservice to New Zealand to continue.”

Ardern was initially praised for her leadership in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. New Zealand’s strict quarantine rules kept infections low for months, and her liberal Labour Party won a landslide election in October 2020.

At one memorable point in the pandemic, Ardern fired back at then-President Trump for his “patently wrong” claim that her country was seeing a surge in coronavirus cases.

“I think anyone who’s following COVID and its transmission globally will quite easily see that New Zealand’s nine cases in a day does not compare to the United States’ tens of thousands, and in fact does not compare to most countries in the world,” she said in August 2020.

But as the pandemic wore on, Ardern’s policies became less popular. Recent opinion polls showed people favoring the opposing National Party.

Labour Party leadership was thrown into immediate flux, as Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson said he would not run to replace Ardern.

With News Wire Services