New Zealand farmers sour on Ardern’s Labour, complicating new PM's path

FILE PHOTO: Sheep ready to be shorn are pictured on the property of sheep farmer Roger Barton in New Zealand's Wairarapa region, November 14, 2014. REUTERS/Naomi Tajitsu/File Photo

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Jacinda Ardern won over many New Zealand farmers with effective COVID-19 policies, but the influential rural bloc has soured on her as out of touch, weighing on the chances for the prime minister's successor to stay in power.

Ardern make the shock announcement on Thursday that she was resigning, saying she had "no more in the tank" after five and a half years marked by upheavals such as COVID, a massacre of Muslims by a white supremacist and a deadly volcano.