Jacinda Ardern will go down in history for her youth, her feminist views, and her focus on “good politics” to provide a strong counterbalance to her stalwart male counterparts and create the cultural phenomenon known as “Jacindamania.”

Although she successfully dealt with a terrorist attack on Islamic mosques in Christchurch, the pandemic has taken a long-term toll on the prime minister’s popularity. While the country has acknowledged its capacity for sober and accurate accountability, initially backing Ardern’s stringent Covid-19 measures, the severe impact of the lockdowns on the economy and mandatory vaccination policies are fueling conspiracy theories, sparking public backlash.

“Citizens have invested a lot in it. It has always been part of her magnificence. He became the symbol and personification of this particular health policy. Many used her initiatives, especially on the Internet, to harm her,” said political science professor Richard Shaw from Massey University, New Zealand.

The original goal of the New Zealand Public Health Service was ambitious. Ardern and some epidemiologists who are government advisers hoped they could eradicate the virus and keep it out of the country. In early 2020, the prime minister urged the country to come to terms with border closures and the strictest lockdowns in the Western world, where even taking a ball out of a neighbor’s garden was illegal.

The prevalence of new and more infectious virus mutations has made the above goals impossible. The Prime Minister’s health team has changed policy, pushing for mass vaccination of the population. The vaccination rules were so strict that unvaccinated people were not allowed to work, eat in restaurants, or visit a hairdresser. “Frustration about vaccination regulations played an important role. The turning point was the creation of a two-class society and the limited effectiveness of vaccines,” says Simon Thornley, an epidemiologist at the University of Auckland, who has been critical of the prime minister’s vaccination policies from the beginning.

As such, Ardern became a target both at home and abroad for those who saw forced vaccination as a violation of their personal rights. Conspiracy theories, disinformation and personal attacks circulate online, while threats against Ardern have skyrocketed in recent years. Tensions came to a head last February when protesters, possibly inspired by anti-vaccination protests in the US and Canada, clashed with police, with 120 of them arrested. These scenes shocked a country unaccustomed to violence. “It was a black day in New Zealand’s history,” says Dr. Thornley.

New Zealand writer and journalist Dylan Reeve believes the prime minister’s international prominence played a role in fueling conspiracy theories against her. “The international recognition he received so quickly and the praise of the international community did not go unnoticed in conspiracy circles,” says Reeve. The attacks on her did not stop even after the pandemic subsided. Earlier this month, Trump adviser Roger Stone called Ardern “a cog in internationalist authoritarianism.”

In her speech yesterday, the outgoing prime minister did not mention a specific group of her critics, but hinted that systematic slander and misogyny had taken a toll on her psychologically. “When she talks about fatigue and an empty stomach, Ms. Ardern wants to elegantly say that she is disgusted by the horrific sexism and misogyny she was subjected to,” said Massey University political science professor Suze Wilson.

In the pubs and parks of the nation’s capital, citizens appear divided, with many praising her stance on a racist gunman’s 2019 attack on two Christchurch mosques that killed 51 people, and others criticizing her for breaking her campaign promises to fight precision.