Asia
New Zealand and the Changing Attitudes to Female Leaders During Covid-19 written by Maisie Allen Photo: Jacinda Arden, Getty Images, 2020.
Amidst the turbulence of the upcoming United States Presidential election and its monopolisation of the mediatic space, another election is taking place this autumn. In October, the citizens of New Zealand will head to the ballot boxes. At the moment, Prime Minister and leader of the New Zealand Labour Party Jacinda Ardern is leading a minority coalition government with the leader of the anti-immigration party New Zealand First, Winston Peters, as her deputy. Nevertheless, many pollsters have Ardern and the New Zealand Labour Party predicted to make significant gains in October with the potential to lead a majority government. This is coming hot on the heels of global praise for Ardern’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis, alongside other female leaders, paving the way for a new generation of politicians who are not afraid to embrace a form of leadership that distances itself from the traditionally male-dominated approaches. Ardern’s leadership saw New Zealand become one of the first countries to reach a 100-day milestone without a recorded transmission of Covid-19 before a spike of 4 new cases in Auckland sent the entire city into full lockdown. However, the praise does not stop there. Over the past three years, Ardern has managed to pass legislation regarding paid leave for domestic abuse survivors, confirmed child poverty reduction targets, banned housing sales for foreign visitors, among other developments in health and education. Subsequently, Peters and his New Zealand First party look decidedly anxious about October’s election, even attempting to pressure Ardern into delaying it further until November. Since she took
office in 2017, she has been lauded by the global media as a new kind of leader, namely more empathetic and effective in her approach. The Covid-19 crisis has made this even more evident. Her daily briefings for the New Zealand public encouraged them to ‘be kind’, while at the same time emphasising the government’s zero-tolerance approach for those who flouted the lockdown rules. This included demoting her own Health Minister after he made an unnecessary drive to the beach with his family during the lockdown period, with Ardern stating that New Zealand ‘deserved better’. One aspect of the current media discourse which cannot be ignored is that of gender. In the recent news coverage of political leadership and the results of various approaches to the Covid-19 pandemic, female leaders and the countries they lead are consistently viewed as the most successful. Ardern is no exception. When New Zealand began their lockdown on March 25th, she addressed the country from a Facebook Live session, moving away from the formalities of national broadcast television addresses, seen in several other countries. By openly sharing her feelings about the country’s lockdown and reassuring its citizens, she portrayed herself as an accessible yet firm leader. Just like Ardern, other female leaders, including Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan, have surpassed expectations when it comes to dealing with the pandemic. Ing-wen’s leadership saw Taiwan managing to control the virus without the need for a national lockdown, mainly by relying on contact tracing and isolation measures instead. Arguably, the pandemic could serve as a tipping
Autumn 2020 • Dialogue 87
