Jacinda Ardern will step down by February 7.
Jacinda Ardern has shockingly announced that she will quit as New Zealand Prime Minister, saying she doesn't have "enough in the tank" to lead. The news comes as polls reveal her party faces difficult path to re-election in October polls.
Here are five facts on Jacinda Ardern:
- Born on July 26, 1980, Jacinda Ardern became the youngest female head of government in the world when she was elected prime minister in 2017, aged 37, according to BBC.
- Ms Ardern spent her initial years in Murupara, a small town in New Zealand's North Island. Seeing the children's condition - who did not have anything to eat - inspired her to enter politics. She studied primary and secondary school in Morrinsville, southeast of Auckland, as per Encyclopaedia Britannica.
- Ms Ardern earned her bachelor's degree in Communications Studies in 2001 and soon started her association with the Labour Party. She joined the party in 1999, at the age of 17.
- In 2005, she went to Britain, and worked for two and a half years in the cabinet office of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. In 2008, she was chosen as Labour Pary's candidate for MP of the Waikato district.
- During her political journey, Mrs Ardern got involved in a romantic relationship with broadcast personality Clarke Gayford. They are still not married, but the TV host in recent years has juggled his career with being a stay-at-home father to the couple's daughter, Neve. In 2018, she became the second elected world leader to ever give birth while in office, after Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto in 1990.
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