Ardern, Jacinda Kate Laurell, 1980–, New Zealand political leader. A member of the Labor party, she worked for Prime Minister Helen Clark and for British prime minister Tony Blair and also was elected president of the International Union of Socialist Youth (2007). Returning to New Zealand, she entered parliament in 2008 as its youngest member. In 2017 she became deputy leader of the Labor party and then, after Andrew Little resigned, party leader. In the Sept., 2017, elections, the conservative National party won a plurality, but Ardern and Labor were able to form a government with the conservative populist New Zealand First party with the support of the Green party. The youngest leader of New Zealand since the 1850s, she also became minister for national security and intelligence and for arts, culture, and heritage. Benefiting from her government's decisive response to the COVID-19 pandemic, she led Labor to a majority in the Oct., 2020, elections.
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