August 17, 2020, 06:18 PM
New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has postponed the country's general election by a month, due to a spike in Covid-19 cases.
According to BBC, the election was due to take place on Sep. 19, 2020, but will now be held on Oct. 17 instead.
New wave of Covid-19 cases
The Washington Post reported that New Zealand is currently dealing with a new wave of Covid-19 cases, which has set back the country's recovery efforts.
The decision to postpone the election follows confirmation last Tuesday (Aug. 11) that several members of a family in Auckland had tested positive for the virus, ending New Zealand's record of more than 100 days without a known case of community transmission.
Jacinda Ardern has moved the election date to 17 October and says she will not be changing it again.
— RNZ (@radionz) August 16, 2020
She wanted to provide Parliament and the public "certainty, a sense of fairness, and a sense of comfort to voters that this will be a safe election".
🔗 https://t.co/8i9ZMY9Cge pic.twitter.com/p06LtZlw5u
Restrictions were imposed on Auckland last Wednesday (Aug. 12), after new infections were identified.
As of Monday (Aug. 17), there were nine new Covid-19 cases confirmed, bringing the number of active cases linked to the Auckland cluster to 58.
According to BBC, New Zealand has four "alert levels".
Most of the country is on Level 2, while Auckland has been on Level 3 since the new restrictions were imposed.
New Zealand has reported more than 1,600 Covid-19 cases, and 22 deaths since the pandemic began.
Move to postpone election welcomed by opposition
According to The Washington Post, the move to postpone the election followed calls from leaders of other parties in New Zealand, including Winston Peters, deputy leader of Ardern's ruling coalition.
However, she denied that political pressure played a role in her decision, and emphasised that she had "absolutely no intention" of delaying the election for a second time.
Previously, the opposition National Party has argued that the election should be delayed, as restrictions on campaigning would give Ardern an unfair advantage.
The leader of the National Party Judith Collins welcomed the move, saying that it "was always National's view that to have a fair democratic election we needed to deal with this second wave of Covid-19 so politicians from all parties had a reasonable chance to present their policies, and the public felt comfortable engaging with the campaign without putting their health at risk".
The Prime Minister has announced that the new election date is 17 October. That is her decision. Right now the focus must be on finding out exactly what failed so catastrophically at the border so we can be sure it won’t happen again.
— Judith Collins (@JudithCollinsMP) August 16, 2020
Top image via Jacinda Ardern/FB.
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