With New Zealand’s election less than a year away Jacinda Ardern may be hugely personally popular, and her party polling well, but she will face plenty of challenges to stay in the top job.
Not least of those will be the threat from smaller parties, which could claim crucial votes under New Zealand’s proportional representation voting system and potentially unseat her.
The ongoing Ihumātao dispute has hit the headlines this year and some see the stand-off as part of a global movement to assert Indigenous rights. Her refusal to visit the site was widely reported.
But she has plenty of other events on her re-election CV.
The recently passed zero-carbon bill drew global attention. The landmark legislation, which was passed with with cross-party support, committed the country to reducing its emissions to zero by 2050.
Ardern said it showed New Zealand was on the “right side of history”, although her message that farmers must cut emissions or face penalties as early as 2022 did not play well in all quarters.
The massacre in Christchurch in March has no doubt been one of the defining events of her premiership, including her refusal to name the man accused of the attacks. The gun buyback that followed saw sweeping reforms to remove military-style semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles.
When we recently asked New Zealand’s Guardian readers what they thought the country needed to do to prepare for a population of 5 million people – a milestone expected next year – you told us that improving infrastructure, slowing immigration and putting more emphasis on the regions were priorities.
So now it’s your turn to ask the PM questions directly, by filling out the form below. We asked the leader of the opposition, Simon Bridges, to take part too, but he declined.
