New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has emerged from his sick bed, insisting Labour's hopes for a third term have not been terminated by a poorly timed case of COVID-19.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
The Labour leader is isolating for five days in an Auckland hotel room after catching the virus while on the campaign trail.
He made a surprise appearance on Monday night's TVNZ news when viewers were left in no doubt of his illness.
"I've taken a lot of drugs to do this interview," he said with a raspy voice.
"It started to come on Saturday night, and by Sunday morning, I was sort of a bit wiped out by it.
"The full body aches, congestion and coughs and the whole works. Today that body aches have eased and a little bit of energy is coming back but as you can probably hear, there's still quite a lot of congestion."
He did a full sweep of media interviews on Tuesday morning, saying he was "on the mend".
However, he won't be seen in person until Friday, choosing to isolate until then after testing positive on Sunday morning.
There is no longer a compulsory testing or isolation regime in New Zealand, but Mr Hipkins decided to follow the best practice advice even though it has set back his campaign.
Monday marked the first day of advance voting, with all Kiwis eligible to vote.
Hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders will have cast ballots before Mr Hipkins can shake another hand or take another selfie.
Even before his sickness, Labour was already behind the eight-ball, with polls showing Kiwis want a new government led by the opposition centre-right National party.
Mr Hipkins said his bug was "absolutely not" going to end the contest.
"We're still getting incredibly strong support on the ground ... and there's still a lot of undecided voters out there," he said.
"Of course it's frustrating that I can't be out there speaking to some of those undecided voters but I'm hoping that I'll be able to reach them in a digital form in the next few days."
Labour has announced a pair of virtual town hall meetings on Wednesday night and Thursday morning when Kiwis can log on and ask questions of Mr Hipkins.
The prime minister's COVID-19 case has also produced a blame game between Labour and National over the third leaders' debate, initially scheduled for Tuesday night but now cancelled.
National leader Chris Luxon withdrew from the debate after Mr Hipkins was unable to attend, with Labour accusing him of running scared as he did not attempt to reschedule.
Labour, needing to gain ground in the polls, offered up Finance Minister Grant Robertson or offered to participate on another night.
National declined to debate Mr Robertson or Mr Hipkins on another night, citing an unalterable schedule.
Labour ministers then shared a digitally altered image of Mr Luxon in a chicken suit on social media, while Mr Luxon countered with a picture of himself eating KFC.
Mr Luxon said he was "extremely disappointed to see Labour falsely claiming that I have pulled out".
"I've already debated Chris Hipkins twice and I look forward to debating him again in the final debate on TVNZ next Thursday night."
Others including veteran populist Winston Peters offered themselves as fill-ins.
On TVNZ, Mr Hipkins rued his predicament.
"They are walking away from all of the tough questions so I guess it's very frustrating that I can't be there on the campaign trail to challenge them a little bit more," he said.
"But there's still more time for that before this campaign is over."
Australian Associated Press
