On the morning of August 26, 2021, my wife and I arrived at Christchurch Airport, New Zealand, for our flight to Heathrow. The airport was a ghost town. All the shops were closed and the notifications board showed mostly cancelled flights. Just nine days before, Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, had announced the whole nation would be plunged into a level 4 (the strictest level) lockdown due to the identification of a single case of the Delta variant in Auckland.

Our flight was nearly empty (there were maybe 15 passengers). Masks were mandatory, as were social distancing protocols. As we took off, I watched the Canterbury Plains disappear beneath me with deeply conflicted emotions.

I was, on the one hand, very relieved. We were heading back to live in the UK and would soon see the family and friends we had been barred from seeing for over 18 months due to New Zealand’s closed border policy. (The quarantine lottery process meant that leaving New Zealand was off the table as there was no way of knowing if we’d ever get back in.) We had decided to leave New Zealand as we had no idea how much longer the border would be closed and therefore how much longer it would be before we saw family. This period has been especially hard for my wife, whose daughter was based in London. They hadn’t met in person or held each other for over 20 months. So, we decided to resign our jobs, sell our house, and move back to the UK.

Despite this sense of relief, I was deeply saddened. I had left my job as a research fellow at the University of Canterbury – one I greatly enjoyed, especially because of the team around me. Just the year before, we had bought a beautiful house in Christchurch and were slowly settling into daily life there. The biggest sense of loss was knowing we were leaving behind friends we loved dearly. I wondered if I would ever see them again.

My story is not unique. I know that. I also know that many people had it worse. Much worse. New Zealand’s Zero Covid approach caused untold heartache for myriad people. I know people who lost their job. Businesses were closed and livelihoods were lost. Police and the defence force staff were ordered to take vaccinations to keep their jobs – a policy that was later ruled to be unlawful. Children lost important developmental experiences and years of education. I know of someone who was stopped from visiting their dying husband in hospital, leaving her and her family with the knowledge that he died alone. Some had to watch a parent’s funeral on Zoom, while others were declined exceptions to leave mandatory quarantine to say goodbye to their dying relatives. Others, protesting the mandates in early 2022, were pepper sprayed, baton-charged, and some arrested by police, all after having been tarred as anti-vaxxers and fascists.

These stories, including my own, stem from New Zealand’s decision to enact draconian lockdowns and a Zero Covid policy in March 2020. Step forward Jacinda Ardern – New Zealand’s ‘Single Source of Truth’. Ardern led from the front with her daily media performances instructing her ‘Team of 5 Million‘ how to behave and reminding us all how lucky we were to be living in New Zealand. She won a landslide election victory in late 2020 on the back of this. People didn’t vote for Labour that year. They voted for Jacinda Ardern. After all, she had single-handedly saved us from a fate worse than a fate worse than death (hat tip Blackadder).

Since then, it’s fair to say the glitter has worn off (at least domestically). Ardern’s net favourability ratings have plunged from over 70 per cent in May 2020 to minus 1 per cent in January 2023. Many were predicting electoral defeat for her and Labour in the upcoming general election, with some suggesting Ardern had become toxic to Labour’s brand. Then, in late January 2023, we received the news Ardern was stepping down as Prime Minister with almost immediate effect. She ‘no longer had enough in the tank’, she said. It apparently didn’t have anything to do with the fact she could see the writing on the wall and bailed to avoid an embarrassing electoral defeat that would have tarnished her brand.

Now, you would think, given my experience, I would be pleased she resigned. But on that, I am deeply conflicted. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad she has resigned. By most metrics, New Zealand and Kiwis are worse off now than when she took office. Nonetheless, two weeks after her resignation I am increasingly exasperated by her decision.

As citizens, we have only one truly democratic way of holding our leaders to account – and that is at the ballot box. In October this year, the Kiwis whose lives were devastated by mandates, who lost jobs and businesses, who were barred from kissing loved one’s goodbye, who missed funerals, who have been pushed into poverty, and who were baton-charged and beaten, had a chance to hold Ardern to account at the general election. Make no mistake – the 2023 election would have been a referendum on Ardern. With her resignation, Kiwis have had that stolen from them.

As a Kiwi friend said to me recently when we were discussing her resignation, ‘If most people have been harmed by your policies and now aren’t allowed to express their feelings and hold you accountable, well, that’s only going to lead to resentment.’ I believe he is right. Many Kiwis will feel great resentment towards her for this act. Relief she has gone, for sure. But with a lingering resentment that she now walks away unchallenged.

So now what? Well, Ardern will no doubt take some time off to recharge, only to reappear (with a full tank) in 6 to 9 months at the UN or WHO. Meanwhile, millions of Kiwis will have to live with the legacy of her Covid policies for years to come. They will also need to come to terms with the fact that they cannot hold to account the one person who caused them so much pain and upheaval.