After nearly five years of engagement and delays due to the coronavirus outbreak, former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern married longtime partner Clarke Gayford in a private ceremony Saturday.
Details of the event are being kept tight-lipped by the couple, but the ceremony was reportedly held at a luxury vineyard in the beautiful Hawke’s Bay region, 200 miles from New Zealand’s capital, Wellington.
It is believed that only family, close friends and some of Ardern’s former colleagues, 43, were invited, including Ardern’s successor and former prime minister Chris Hipkins.
Earlier, police met a small group of protesters who had plastered a wall with dozens of anti-vaccination posters outside the venue.
A protester was also seen holding a sign reading, “Lest we forget the jab mandate,” at the edge of the property.
Ardern and Gayford, 47, reportedly started dating in 2014 and became engaged five years later, but due to Ardern’s government’s COVID-19 restrictions that reduced gatherings to 100 people, the planned wedding for the southern hemisphere summer of 2022 has been postponed.
“That’s life,” Ardern said at the time of their decision to call off the wedding. “I’m no different to, dare I say it, thousands of other New Zealanders.”
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaks with guests at her private wedding to Clarke Gayford at a vineyard in Havelock North, New Zealand on January 13, 2024. AP Believed only to be family, close friends and some of Ardern’s 43-year-old former MP colleagues were invited, including Ardern’s successor and former prime minister Chris Hipkins. AP
Aged just 37 when she became leader in 2017, Ardern quickly became a global icon of the left.
He exemplified a new leadership style and was praised around the world for handling the country’s worst mass shooting and the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak.
In 2018, Ardern became the second elected world leader to give birth while in office. Later that year, she took her infant daughter to the floor of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
New Zealand, under Ardern’s government, has some of the strictest coronavirus mandates in the world, prompting several rallies during her final year as prime minister.
Ardern and Gayford, 47, reportedly started dating in 2014 and became engaged five years later, but due to Ardern’s government’s COVID-19 restrictions that reduced gatherings to 100 people, the planned wedding for the southern hemisphere summer of 2022 has been postponed. AP
It also led to a level of vitriol some New Zealand leaders have never experienced before.
Ardern shocked New Zealanders in January 2023 when she said she was stepping down after five-and-a-half years as prime minister because she no longer had “enough in the tank” to do the job justice in an election year.
Since then, Ardern has announced she will join Harvard University on a temporary basis after being appointed to two fellowships at the Harvard Kennedy School.
He has also taken on an unpaid role fighting online extremism.
Ardern shocked New Zealanders in January 2023 when she said she was stepping down after five-and-a-half years as prime minister because she no longer had “enough in the tank” to do the job justice in an election year. Reuters
In June, Ardern received one of New Zealand’s highest honors for her service in leading the country through mass shootings and the pandemic.
She has been made a Dame Grand Companion, meaning people will now call her Dame Jacinda Ardern.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
