Former New Zealand Covid-19 official Chris Hipkins, 44, has been nominated by Labor MPs to replace Jacinda Ardern as prime minister, the Labor political party said in a press release on Friday (20 January).
Mr Hipkins has yet to be formally appointed by his party’s leadership on Sunday before he can become his country’s 41st prime minister after Jacinda Ardern’s surprise resignation on Thursday. The new prime minister will be responsible for leading his party in October’s general election, for which polls show he is not the favorite.
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Mr Hipkins’ action was welcomed at the head of the department responsible for developing the response to the epidemic in a country that closed its borders to limit the risk of infection and only reopened them last August. A veteran of more than fourteen years in Parliament, he admitted last year that people were fed up with the strict health restrictions and described border closures as “difficult”. Minister of the Interior since June, he had previously held the departments of education and public service.
Ms Ardern, 42, resigned on Thursday, claiming after five and a half years in power she “doesn’t have enough energy” to continue governing. During her tenure, she faced the Covid-19 epidemic, a deadly volcanic eruption and the country’s worst-ever attack, the 2019 killing of fifty-one Muslim worshipers at two Christchurch mosques by a white supremacist.
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