Jacinda Ardern rocks in tackling pandemic in poll push
![Jacinda Ardern rocks in tackling pandemic in poll push](https://morningmaillive.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/index.jpg)
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Sunday burnished her leadership credentials on the back of her successful response to the coronavirus pandemic at a campaign rally six days ahead of the country’s election on Oct. 17.
Polls show Ardern’s Labour Party is expected to win the election with a wide lead over the conservative National Party, and could form government in a coalition with the Greens and New Zealand First.
“While there was no playbook for COVID-19, we went hard and early and committed to a strategy of elimination which has meant that when we’ve had new cases, we’ve circled and stamped them out and opened up our economy faster than others,” Ardern told a campaign rally in the capital Wellington.
“I will always maintain that it has been and will continue to be the right thing to do.”