Who is New Zealand’s new prime minister?

New Zealand Labour Party leader Jacinda Ardern is to become the country’s youngest prime minister in more than 150 years, after winning the support of a minor nationist party to form a centre-left coalition government.

Ardern, 37, has been opposition leader since August, and this week struck a deal with the NZ First party to form a coalition. The move follows the failure of any party to secure a majority in a general election last month.

Labour came second in the vote, behind incumbent PM Bill English’s centre-right National Party, while NZ First finished in third place.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

But who is New Zealand’s new prime minister-elect, and what does the coalition government mean for the country?

Who is Jacinda Ardern?

Ardern was born in 1980 in Hamilton, a city on New Zealand’s North Island. She was brought up a Mormon, but left the faith over its opposition to same-sex marriage.

“To the outside world, Ardern appears to have come from nowhere in this election,” says the BBC, but she has been known as a rising star in the country’s Labour Party since becoming an MP in 2008, at the age of 28.

Ardern had been a supporter of left-wing social and economic policy from a young age, working for Helen Clark during her time as New Zealand PM, and at one point acting as a policy advisor to Tony Blair.

How did she become prime minister?

Ardern ran her campaign on a platform of support for New Zealand’s welfare state, the removal of Queen Elizabeth as the head of state, and the liberalisation of the country’s abortion laws, which at present are restrictive unless there is a threat to the mother’s life.

She also made “tackling inequality, affordable housing and student debt” a key part of her election campaign, says the BBC.

Despite finishing second in last month’s election, Labour gained 14 seats on their 2014 election result, giving them their highest number of seats since losing power in 2008.

This left NZ First - who won nine seats - with the power to back either Labour or the National Party to form a coalition government.

After 26 days of negotiations, during which NZ First leader Winston Peters refused to inform either party who he was going to support, he announced on live TV today that he would be backing Ardern’s Labour - handing her enough seats to form a minority coalition government. She, in turn, has wrangled a confidence and supply deal with the country’s Green Party.

What does this mean for New Zealand?

Though officially in power, Ardern will have some negotiating to do to push through policy.

Her newest ally, Peters, has been offered the role of deputy prime minister, and all policy decisions will have to go through his party, which will have members in the cabinet.

NZ First’s key campaign policies included increasing funding for New Zealand’s military, supporting an increase in mining activity, and actively opposing same-sex marriage - all seven of its then-MPs voted against a bill to legalise same-sex marriage in 2013.

All of these policies stand in direct contrast to those of the Green Party, whom Ardern has roped into supporting the minority government in vital votes. Peters is reported to hold a “real dislike” for the Greens, which may make matters even more difficult for Labour.

Peters also fervently supports restricting immigration into New Zealand, and wants to reduce net migration to 10,000 a year.

To the surprise of many commentators, Ardern has backed plans to cut annual net immigration by up to 30,000. The move saw the Wall Street Journal describe her as “New Zealand’s Justin Trudeau - except she’s more like Trump on immigration”.