Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern offered an apology after she was caught swearing at another lawmaker on a hot mic this week.
During a meeting of the Parliament on Tuesday, Ardern, a liberal, could be heard calling her rival David Seymour, the leader of the libertarian ACT party, “such an arrogant p—-” after he asked her to provide an example of her “making a mistake, apologizing for it properly, and fixing it.”
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The fallout over the remark comes as Ardern’s Labour Party has been trailing its opposition — the National Party —in recent polls.
Earlier this month, Ardern made headlines when she offered a pointed answer to a reporter who questioned why she and Finland Prime Minister Sanna Marin, theworld’s youngest Prime Minister, were meeting.
During the briefing, one reporter said,“A lot of people will be wondering: Are you two meeting just because you’re similar in age and got a lot of common stuff there, when you got into politics and stuff…?”
Calling out the question, Ardern replied with one of her own.
“My first question is, I wonder whether or not anyone ever askedBarack Obamaand John Key if they met because they were of similar age?” she said. “We, of course, have a higher proportion of men in politics. It’s reality. Because two women meet, it’s not simply because of their gender.”
Ardern added that the meeting was a way to “leverage the economic opportunities between our two countries,” saying: “Little would be known about the depth of that relationship or the potential of it. But it’s our job to further it, regardless of our gender.”
Marin later reiterated Ardern’s remarks.
“We are meeting because we are prime ministers, of course,” Marin said. “But as Jacinda said, we have a business delegation with us. We have a lot of things in common but also a lot of things where we can do much more together.”
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When Ardern was elected as the 40th prime minister of New Zealand in 2017, she became the world’s youngest female head of government at age 37.
Shegarnered global attentionfor her country’s successful handling of theCOVID-19pandemic, easilyclinching a re-election in 2020.
source: people.com
