New Zealanders go to the polls as Ardern seeks 2nd term

Polling places opened on election day in New Zealand on Saturday as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern seeks a second term.

Ardern brought homemade cheese scones to campaign volunteers in Auckland and appeared relaxed as she awaited results, which is announced later at night.

Opinion polls indicate Ardern is poised to win, with her liberal Labour Party polling far prior to the conservative National Party, led by Judith Collins. An archive number of voters cast early ballots in both weeks before the election.

On the campaign trail, Ardern has been greeted such as a rock star by persons who have crammed into malls and spilled onto streets to cheer her on and get selfies with her.

Her popularity soared earlier this season after she led an effective effort to stamp out the coronavirus. There is currently no community spread of the virus in the country of 5 million and persons are no longer necessary to wear masks or social distance.

One question will be whether Labour can win an outright majority in Parliament, something that hasn’t happened since New Zealand implemented a proportional voting system 24 years back. Typically, parties must form alliances to govern, but this time around there’s a chance Ardern and Labour should be able to go it alone.

Ardern's rival Collins says she still believes she can win and that polls have been wrong before, notably about Brexit and the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Ardern, 40, won the top job after the 2017 election when Labour formed an alliance with two other parties. The next year, she became only the second world leader to provide birth while in office.

She became a job model for working mothers around the world, a lot of whom saw her as a counterpoint to President Donald Trump. And she was praised for her handling of last year’s attack on two Christchurch mosques, whenever a white supremacist gunned down 51 Muslim worshippers.

She moved quickly to pass new laws banning the deadliest types of semi-automatic weapons.

In late March this season, when no more than 100 people had tested positive for COVID-19, Ardern and her health officials put New Zealand into a strict lockdown with a motto of “Go hard and go early.” She shut the borders and outlined an ambitious goal of eliminating the virus completely instead of just trying to regulate its spread.

With New Zealand getting the advantage of as an isolated island nation, the strategy worked. New Zealand eliminated community transmission for 102 days before a new cluster was found out in August in Auckland. Ardern swiftly imposed the next lockdown in Auckland and the brand new outbreak faded away. The only new cases found recently have already been among returning travelers, who are in quarantine.

The Auckland outbreak also prompted Ardern to postpone the election by per month and helped increase the early voter turnout.

Collins, 61, is a former lawyer. She served as a minister when National was in power and prides herself on a blunt, no-nonsense approach, a contrast to Ardern’s empathetic style. Collins is promising sweeping tax cuts in response to the monetary downturn due to the virus.

In the election, voters likewise have a say on two contentious social issues - whether to legalize marijuana and euthanasia. Polls indicate the euthanasia referendum will probably pass as the marijuana vote remains close.