What lessons might be in the resignation of Jacinda Adern as Prime Minister of the South Pacific nation of New Zealand, especially for those who live far away from that part of the world? The lesson, Intervention ventures to say, is the complex question of acquisition and consolidation of power in the Western world.
Jacinda Ardern has, otherwise, been in the eyes of the world as “someone who”, according to Canadian Prime Minister, “has shown the world how to lead with intellect and strength”. Other colleagues of hers have said the same thing in different words. Her high rating is based on three key approaches to power. One of it is her handling of the 2019 Christchurch terrorist attack on a Mosque. She disarmed potential terrorists on a scale praised by nearly everyone. The second is the promptitude in managing the Covid-19 health crisis while the third main one is her stand on climate change – tough and uncompromising, especially against denialists.
So, she got the rating of a conscientious and compassionate leader. But the world is ruled by paradoxes and sentiments rather than reason. So, she began to fall in popular rating subsequently. It is to the extent that she had to throw in the towel on January 19th, 2023 after five years in power. It is never possible to have all the facts of any matter but piecing together the titbits, it is hard to believe that Ardern would have had to resign if she were one of the toughies in world politics.
One of her ‘crimes’ is attacking free speech. Another is that she is an advocate of free sex. Ardern is not married. She only has a boyfriend with whom she has a child. Now, a section of the Australian media, (Australia is, of course, the hegemon over there) is asking her to go and get married; that she is destroying family life and that family the faily is the foundation of society. It is unimaginable that any part of the Western world will hypocritically be pontificating on the sanctity of the family when it is the West that is railroading other cultures to accept homosexuality.
This is not enough evidence to argue the innocence or otherwise of Jacinda Ardern but it is still possible to speculate that her problems might be her socialist background. She was once in the leadership of the International Union of Socialist Youths. It remains to be seen how far this explains what she has encountered as to lead a Prime Minister generally regarded as decent and performing to leave earlier than is the case!
1 Comments
Abdullahi Musa
Thi is my view as a novice, dabbling into affairs which professionals would not like to take a definitive stand.
Since Gulf war, there have been successive agenda reigning at any one time. Your success as a leader in any corner of the globe is dependent on how best you serve that agenda. ” You are either with us or against us”.
Putin refused to handover Russia to the agenda-setters to rule as they please: to take China, Iran as enemies, to allow listening devices, destructive armaments to be arrayed against enemies.
I know nothing about the game of chess. Buy my perception is that if there is an agenda, the actualisation of which needs a particular nation, and the leader of that nation is not ‘qualified’ to handle it, then that leader has to go.
The arithmetic is that simple.