"I cannot imagine any people for whom I would feel more privileged to work and to be prime minister." The first words of her speech following her re-election were delivered with great emotion in the native Maori language, introducing us to the personality of the person before us. She is Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand's prime minister, who on 17 October was elected to her second consecutive term leading the country, with a landslide victory.

Ardern obtained over 49 per cent of the vote, with 64 seats out of 120, securing for the Labour Party an outright victory not seen in the country for more than 50 years. Her party will not need coalitions to govern — although in practice Ardern is in dialogue with the Green Party — thanks to the unity of voters' choice.

We live in an increasingly polarised world, a place where more and more people have lost the ability to put themselves in others' shoes. I hope that in this election New Zealand has shown it is not like that. But a nation that knows how to listen, to debate. We are too small to lose sight of others' perspectives. Elections do not always bring people together. But that does not mean they have to divide them.

Jacinda Ardern, prime minister of New Zealand

An inclusive Parliament

The Parliament that has just been formed will also be one of the most inclusive and "diverse" in the world in terms of gender, ethnic minorities and indigenous representation. It will be the first time that such a high number of women, indigenous people and members of the LGBT community will take seats in Parliament: 55 per cent of the new Labour MPs are women and 16 MPs of Maori origin have been elected. Also contributing to this record is the presence of the Green Party, where women make up 70 per cent of MPs.

Between the two parties there will be, for example, the first New Zealand MP of Sri Lankan origin, Vanushi Walters, the first of Latin American origin, Ricardo Menéndez, and the first of African origin, Ibrahim Omar. And 10 per cent of MPs belong to the LGBT community, like Finance Minister Grant Robertson, who is openly gay. Not only that, according to the Reuters agency, the majority of the newly elected members are below the average age, with numerous MPs born between 1981 and 1996, making them millennials. Jacinda Ardern herself, when she was elected in 2017 at just 37 years of age, was the youngest serving prime minister in the world.

We have seen the departure of many of the older MPs, men, white, some of whom had been in Parliament for more than 30 years.

Paul Spoonley, professor of social sciences

The defeat of populism and extremism

The Labour Party's triumph has further cemented the near-total disappearance of the most extreme political fringes, demonstrating how they have been unable over the years to gain a foothold in New Zealand, unlike other countries that have seen a shift towards populist and nationalist movements. As reported by the Guardian newspaper, this phenomenon may also be explained by the population's decades-long satisfaction with politics, which has seen a balanced alternation of centre-left and centre-right governments that have led the country in a moderate manner. A further confirmation was the exclusion from Parliament of the right-wing populist party Nzf (New Zealand First), which reached only 2.6 per cent of the vote.

These were not ordinary elections and these are not ordinary times. There is a lot of uncertainty and anxiety — and we wanted to be an antidote to all of that.

Jacinda Ardern

Jacinda Ardern's victory had seemed a foregone conclusion, given the success of the actions taken during several moments of crisis over the course of her term. A success that many scholars have linked to certain qualities that few other leaders in the world have managed to demonstrate, such as a pragmatic approach, decisiveness in decision-making, clarity of communication and empathy.

Pragmatism, decisiveness and empathy

The latest example was the masterful handling of the spread of coronavirus in New Zealand. The response to the pandemic was immediate: Ardern closed the country's borders from the outset, imposing a full lockdown on the population. In doing so, the prime minister clearly explained to the population the reasons behind these decisions and what they would entail in terms of sacrifices, but also of benefit — they would, simply, "save lives". Not only that, through Facebook Live sessions from her home, Ardern explained in plain terms the details of every emergency measure taken and communicated during previous press conferences, establishing a human and trusting relationship with New Zealanders during an uncertain and unprecedented moment of crisis.

New Zealand implemented the most decisive and rigorous lockdown in the world. It must be taken as a model because it is the only Western country that has set itself the objective of eliminating Covid-19.

Michael Baker, epidemiologist

Thanks to her actions, New Zealand has to date recorded only 25 deaths and fewer than two thousand total cases, allowing the country to be one of the few in the world to have lifted the majority of containment measures and returned to near-total normality.

Another example was the reaction to the Christchurch terrorist attack in 2019, in which an Australian right-wing extremist killed 50 people of the Islamic faith. Just days after what became the worst mass shooting in New Zealand's history, the government had passed a ban on the free sale of firearms and, in particular, a prohibition on the sale of certain semi-automatic rifles.

With this act of terrorism the attacker wanted to achieve a number of objectives. One of these was notoriety. That is why you will never hear me utter his name. He is a terrorist. A criminal. An extremist. I urge you to remember the names of those who were killed, rather than the name of the one who killed them.

Jacinda Ardern

New challenges for a new model

The future challenges that Jacinda Ardern will have to face in her second term will be no less demanding. She will need to contend with relaunching the economy at a time when the world is dominated by uncertainty, while focusing on domestic challenges such as employment, poverty (above all child poverty, to which Ardern devoted considerable space in her election campaign), the surge in property market prices and, not least, the climate crisis.

This is our opportunity to build an economy that works for everyone, to continue to create decent jobs, to protect the environment and address the challenges of the climate, to fight poverty and inequality, to turn uncertainty and hard times into a reason for hope and optimism

Jacinda Ardern

If in her first term Ardern had acted in a more moderate manner due to the need to maintain coalitions in order to govern (including, among others, NZF) and therefore had less room for manoeuvre, in this second term she will need to demonstrate what her true agenda will be. With the prospect of a coalition with the Greens, it is to be hoped that action on climate will also be more ambitious.

We know the coming years will not be easy. The past ones have not been, but there have been glimmers of light even in the darkest of times. That light has been our determination, our support for one another, our resolve. That light has always been more powerful even than the most crushing darkness

Jacinda Ardern

Recognition of the uniqueness of Jacinda Ardern's leadership has by now spread beyond the borders of this island in the Pacific Ocean and has "won over" many of the countries that – from her, precisely – should be learning a new model of governance. A model that is able to set aside personal interest when the future and the lives of an entire people are at stake, yet at the same time manages to merge her work with her own person, humanising the figure of the leader and building trust between government and population. Through who she is, Ardern was the youngest prime minister in 2017, the second woman to give birth while serving as head of government in 2018, and the most celebrated New Zealand leader of the century in 2020. A confirmation that stereotyped and traditionalist models must be left behind.