Guwahati: Education Minister Chris Hipkins is expected to become the next prime minister of New Zealand after being the only contender to enter the race to succeed Jacinda Ardern on Saturday.
According to an AP story, Hipkins, 44, still needs the Labour Party’s backing on Sunday, but that is now just a formality.
Ardern startled the 5 million-person nation on Thursday by announcing her resignation after serving in the top position for five and a half years.
The absence of other candidates suggested that party legislators had united behind Hipkins in order to prevent a protracted election and any indication of division in the wake of Ardern’s resignation.
Hipkins will have been in the position for less than eight months before running in the general election. Opinion polls have indicated that Labour is trailing the main opponent, the conservative National Party.
Hipkins gained notoriety when he assumed a crisis management role during the coronavirus outbreak. But Ardern, who rose to become a left-leaning star and typified a new kind of leadership, has long cast a shadow over him and other liberals.
Ardern, who was only 37 when she took office, won accolades from all over the world for how she handled the country’s greatest mass shooting and the beginnings of the pandemic. However, she was subjected to increasing domestic political pressures and a level of hostility from some that had never been seen before in a New Zealand leader.
Jacinda Ardern announced on Thursday that she would be leaving the position no later than February 7 while fighting back tears.
“I know what this job takes, and I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It is that simple,” she said.