WELLINGTON: New Zealand’s main opposition gambled on a leadership change just weeks before a general election Tuesday after polling showed it was heading for disaster at the ballot box.
The center-left Labour Party selected 37-year-old Jacinda Ardern to take it into the September 23 election, making her the youngest leader in its 101-year history.
The move came after outgoing leader Andrew Little quit in response to a string of opinion polls that put Labour’s support at 20-year lows of 23-24 percent, giving it no chance of forming a government.
Ardern, who was Little’s deputy, becomes Labour’s fifth leader in four years as she seeks to prevent the center-right National Party-led coalition winning a fourth term.
“This team is about to run the campaign of our lives,” she said after winning the leadership unopposed.
Ardern was elected to parliament in 2008 after working as a political adviser and has long been seen as the face of a new generation coming through the Labour ranks.
With her new deputy Kelvin Davis standing alongside her, she promised “relentless positivity” and appealed to young, idealistic voters.
“We’ll be talking to a new generation of voters, but not just about their own personal circumstances,” she told reporters.
“As a country, we can do better than this,” she added.
Little, 52, admitted he had failed to get his message across during more than two years as leader.
“Recent poll results have been disappointing. As leader, I must take responsibility for these results,” he said.
“I do take responsibility and believe that Labour must have an opportunity to perform better under new leadership through to the election.”
Prime Minister Bill English said the change of leadership would not solve Labour’s problems.
“They’re in disarray, the basic problem isn’t really the leadership, it’s they just don’t have a positive view of what New Zealand can achieve,” he told reporters.
English took over as leader of the National Party after John Key’s shock resignation late last year.
While he does not have the personal popularity of his predecessor, the party’s vote share has held steady at around 47 percent under English’s leadership.
However, he warned the Nationals could not be complacent because New Zealand’s complicated proportional voting system usually results in minority governments reliant on smaller parties as coalition partners.
New Zealand opposition changes leader as election looms
New Zealand opposition changes leader as election looms
Lawsuit challenges Trump administration’s ending of protections for Somalis
- The lawsuit cites a series of statements Trump has made describing Somalis as “garbage” and “low IQ people” who “contribute nothing.”
BOSTON: Immigrant rights advocates filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking to stop US President Donald Trump’s administration from next week ending legal protections that allow nearly 1,100 Somalis to live and work in the United States. The lawsuit, brought by four Somalis and two advocacy groups, challenges the US Department of Homeland Security’s decision to end Temporary Protected Status for Somali immigrants, whom Trump has derided in public remarks. Outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in January announced that TPS for Somalis would end on March 17, arguing that Somalia’s conditions had improved, despite fighting continuing between Somali forces and Al-Shabab militants. The plaintiffs, who include the groups African Communities Together and Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, in the lawsuit filed in Boston federal court argue the move was procedurally flawed and driven by a discriminatory, predetermined agenda.
The lawsuit cites a series of statements Trump has made describing Somalis as “garbage” and “low IQ people” who “contribute nothing.”
The plaintiffs said the administration is ending TPS for Somalia and other countries due to unconstitutional bias against non-white immigrants, not based on objective assessments of country conditions.
“The termination of TPS for Somalia is racism masking as immigration policy,” Omar Farah, executive director at the legal group Muslim Advocates, said in a statement.
DHS did not respond to a request for comment. It has previously said TPS was “never intended to be a de facto amnesty program.”
TPS is a form of humanitarian immigration protection that shields eligible migrants from deportation and allows them to work. Under Noem, DHS has moved to end TPS for a dozen countries, sparking legal challenges. The administration on Saturday announced plans to pursue an appeal at the US Supreme Court in order to end TPS for over 350,000 Haitians. It also wants the high court to allow it to end TPS for about 6,000 Syrians.
SOMALI COMMUNITY TARGETED
Somalia was first designated for TPS in 1991, with its latest extension in 2024. About 1,082 Somalis currently hold TPS, and 1,383 more have pending applications, according to DHS. Somalis in Minnesota in recent months had become a target of Trump’s immigration crackdown, with officials pointing to a fraud scandal in which many people charged come from the state’s large Somali community. The Trump administration cited those fraud allegations as a basis for a months-long immigration enforcement surge in Democratic-led Minnesota, during which about 3,000 immigration agents were deployed, spurring protests and leading to the killing of two US citizens by federal agents.
In November, Trump announced he would end TPS for Somalis in Minnesota, and a month later said he wanted them sent “back to where they came from.”
The US Department of State advises against traveling to Somalia, citing crime and civil unrest among numerous factors.
