New Zealand shifts right as voters punish ruling party | CNN
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New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has conceded his Labour party lost Saturday’s election, as voters punished the government and took the country rightwards nine months after his predecessor Jacinda Ardern suddenly resigned.

New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has conceded his Labour party lost Saturday’s election, as voters punished the government and took the country rightwards nine months after his predecessor Jacinda Ardern suddenly resigned.

The rising cost of living dominated campaigning with voters New Zealanders ending six years of Labour Party rule, the latter half of which was dominated by the country’s strict response to the coronavirus pandemic that successfully kept infections low but battered the economy.

With 90% of votes counted on Saturday evening, the center-right National Party, led by former airline executive Christopher Luxon, had amassed around 40% of ballots, CNN affiliates RNZ and Newshub reported.

  • ChetzemokaEnglish
    6•8 months ago

    Authoritarians exist without respect to any political beliefs. They exist to aggrandize themselves.

    • @Occamsrazer@lemdro.idEnglish
      -1•8 months ago

      Mao may not have been progressive, I don’t need to argue that point. But he definitely tapped into a progressive spirit driven by progressive youths and the result was a tragedy.

      • ChetzemokaEnglish
        1•8 months ago

        He definitely did not. He tapped into populist grievance from rural farmers and used them to violently target academics and authorities in cities. Funny how that sounds real familiar, doesn’t it?

          • ChetzemokaEnglish
            1•8 months ago

            Are you saying you think a populist authoritarian movement was really communism?

            • @Occamsrazer@lemdro.idEnglish
              0•8 months ago

              My whole point was that the cultural revolution was a disaster because of unchecked progressivism, and that more conservative voices could have averted the disaster. This was in response to an unhinged rant about conservatives being good for nothing and how they should be silenced. Not sure why I engaged in that insane premise to begin with, but anyway that’s how we got here.

              • ChetzemokaEnglish
                1•8 months ago

                And my whole point was that you’re wrong in your assessment of why the cultural revolution was a disaster. It was a disaster because it was a populist authoritarian movement. Had nothing to do with progressive or conservative no matter what propaganda they used to dress it up.