The local popularity of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has nearly concluded, according to a writer for the UK's Telegraph.
Wellington-based writer David Cohen has penned a column for the newspaper published on Friday, titled: In New Zealand, our love affair with Jacinda Ardern is coming to an end.
While discussing the fact Ardern's popularity had "almost been without precedent" for New Zealand, the odds of Labour winning next year's election were "becoming scanter with the appearance of each new dismal political poll".
Cohen argued, in his Telegraph piece, Ardern's "stratospheric electoral success rode on a widespread perception… that she had managed the near-impossible in keeping COVID at bay"
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"As the wedding bells sound, the hope must be that the richly rewarding love affair she once enjoyed with her electorate will somehow be rekindled as well," Cohen wrote, referring to Ardern's fiancee Clarke Gayford. The pair were due to get married earlier this year before the Omicron variant of COVID-19 struck.
Ardern's initial handling of the pandemic and New Zealand's internationally heralded response to the first COVID-19 waves led her Labour Party to a historic majority election victory in 2020.
Since then, however, she has been criticised over the Government's handling of the chaotic anti-mandate protest at Parliament earlier this year, being slower to reopen New Zealand's borders than many other countries and the mounting cost of living and crime crises.
National was now chipping away at Labour's pandemic popularity. TVNZ Kantar polling this week found Labour had suffered a drop of one point to 33 percent.
The same poll showed National on 38 percent.
That was largely in line with a Newshub-Reid Research poll last month, where Labour recorded its lowest result since Ardern became the leader in 2017 (32.3 percent v Natonal's 40 percent).
