On a hot Auckland afternoon, people on the streets of the prime minister’s electorate were still taking in the news yesterday, saying Jacinda Ardern’s resignation had come like a bolt from the blue.<\/p>\n
One man said he was sad to see her go, saying she had accomplished a lot of great things during her time as leader.<\/p>\n
“I’m somewhat in mourning, I think, just processing all that,” he said.<\/p>\n
And Maddie from Mt Albert said she would never have picked such dramatic news.<\/p>\n
“I was very surprised, especially with her resigning so soon, not a lot of warning!” she said.<\/p>\n
She was looking forward to seeing who would be Labour’s next leader, but doubted the party would win the election.<\/p>\n
Maddie said that, without Ardern, Labour would likely lose the October election to the National Party.<\/p>\n
The founder of the Mt Albert Islamic Trust, Muhammed Ali, believed Ardern made an indelible mark on the local Muslim community.<\/p>\n
He said after the 2019 Christchurch mosque attack, the prime minister’s rallying call was felt loud and clear in her electorate.<\/p>\n
“Whenever we walked up the road during those days, everybody who saw us would say the Muslim greeting As-salamu alaykum,” he explained.<\/p>\n
Dr Ali said that was incredibly touching at a time of great anxiety for the Muslim community.<\/p>\n
He hoped Labour’s next leader would show that same compassion.<\/p>\n
Another Mt Albert local told RNZ it was good to see Ardern focussing on her well-being.<\/p>\n
“I’m happy for her, if that’s her choice, especially spiritually, physically, and mentally,” she said.<\/p>\n
Mt Albert residents say they will be keeping a close eye on the leadership race, as they farewell their high-profile MP.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On a hot Auckland afternoon, people on the streets of the prime minister’s electorate were still taking in the news yesterday, saying Jacinda Ardern’s resignation had come like a bolt from the blue. One man said he was sad to see her go, saying she had accomplished a lot of great things during her time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2361"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2363,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2361\/revisions\/2363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}