New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern to resign

Photo Credit: AP

Jacinda Ardern is quitting as New Zealand prime minister ahead of this year's election saying she no longer has "enough in the tank" to lead.

Fighting back tears, Ms. Ardern told reporters in Napier that February 7 will be her last day in office. She will hold her seat as a lawmaker until the general election, which she said would be held on October 14.

Ms. Ardern had faced a tough election campaign this year. Her liberal Labour Party won re-election two years ago in a landslide of historic proportions, but recent polls have put her party behind its conservative rivals.

Ms Ardern became the youngest female head of government in the world when she was elected prime minister in 2017, aged 37.

And a year later she became the second elected world leader to ever give birth while in office, after Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto in 1990.

She steered New Zealand through the Covid-19 pandemic and its ensuing recession, the Christchurch mosque shootings, and the White Island volcanic eruption.