New Zealand Elections 2020

Nanaia Mahuta will be New Zealand's foreign affairs minister, the first woman and the first Indigenous woman to take that job. Jacinda Ardern promoted Mahuta, who has served as the country's first female member of parliament to wear a moko kauae, a traditional tattoo on her chin, for the past four years.

"I'm privileged to be able to lead the conversation in the foreign space," so Mahuta.

"This is a cabinet and an executive that is based on merit that also happens to be incredibly diverse and I am proud of that," Ardern said Monday.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has won a second term after a landslide victory in the country's general election. Preliminary results show that Ardern's centre-left Labour Party has won 49% of the vote.

Saturday's result means the Labour Party is projected to win 64 out of 120 parliamentary seats, and be the first party in 24 years with a clear majority.

The citizens of New Zealand are set to vote on two social issues during the national elections that are set to happen on Sunday.

They can decide if recreational marijuana and euthanasia should be legalized in the country. Recent polls indicate that the outcome of the marijuana referendum remains uncertain while the euthanasia referendum is likely to pass.

New Zealand's Māori Party stated Monday the country should be renamed "Aotearoa" by 2026, to better reflect the country's indigenous culture. Rawiri Waititi, a candidate Waiariki on next months' election was "a bold move towards making Te Reo Māori a language for all of Aotearoa".

Aotearoa means 'the land of white cloud' in the nation's indigenous language, also known as te reo.

Both English and Māori are official languages in New Zealand. The Maoris are the largest ethnic minatory, representing 16.5 per cent of the population.

The general elections in New Zealand have been postponed from the 19 September to the 17 October. Reason are the new Covid-19 cases and the extended lockdown for Auckland and the higehr alert in the remaining country.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday that "this decision gives all parties enough time for their election campaign over the next nine weeks and the Election Commission enough time to ensure that the election can take place".

The governing Labour Party lead by prime minister Jacinda Ardern has been polled at a record number of 60,9% approval according to the Newshub-Reid Research Poll. Jacinda Ardern herself stands currently at an approval rating of 62% to the question of the preferred prime minister with her contender Judith Collins from the National Party standing at only 14,6%.

During the past months, the approval ratings of the Labour party and Ardern herself have significantly improved which Ardern attributed to the governments' reaction to the pandemic: "I would like to think the message we can take from this is the general support for the government’s COVID-19 recovery and response plan".

New Zealand is set to hold the next election in November.