New Zealand elects youngest Prime Minister in history

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Kiwi PM Jacinda Ardern will be world's youngest female leader
Wellington: The 37-year-old daughter of a New Zealand police officer is set to join a new generation of leaders overturning the political establishment in some of the world's most-developed countries.

Jacinda Ardern will become the world's youngest female leader after cutting a deal to form a coalition government in New Zealand. (Vanessa D'Ambrosio, 28, regent of San Marino, finishes her rotating co-leadership arrangement at the end of October.)

Ardern's swift rise to power, less than three months after taking the reins of the struggling Labour Party, has drawn comparisons with the generational shift seen in Austria, Ireland, Canada and France.

"There has been a total reorientation to politics by the public since the global financial crisis," said Bryce Edwards, a political scientist at Victoria University in Wellington. "They are no longer bound by the idea that politicians need to have experience, or age or strong credentials."

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Ardern has electrified supporters since becoming Labour leader on August 1, stirring up what the media dubbed "Jacinda-mania" as she pledged to tackle social issues such as child poverty and affordable housing. She transformed the centre-left party's poll ratings, which had slumped to 24 per cent, roughly half of outgoing Prime Minister Bill English's National Party.

Although Labour finished second in the September 23 election, National failed to secure a majority - leaving both needing the backing of the New Zealand First party to take office. After 12 days of negotiations, the small, nationalist party's leader, Winston Peters, threw his support behind Ardern, saying that capitalism needed to regain its "human face".

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NZ Prime Minister-elect Jacinda Ardern describes herself as socially liberal. Photo: Ross Giblin/Fairfax NZ
 
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