What you need to know: Who takes over from Jacinda Ardern prime bone in ribeye Prime Minister when she steps down? Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern dropped a huge bombshell when she announced her resignation on Thursday afternoon.

Among the many questions that come in the aftermath is: Who will take over as Prime Minister? Ardern herself gave some indications on the latter, at least. Here’s what you need to know. Ardern’s replacement as leader of the Labour Party will take over as Prime Minister. The party’s own process for picking a leader, therefore, is effectively what decides who gets the gig.

The first step, Ardern said, was for caucus to decide within seven days if there was someone within their ranks that at least two-thirds agreed should be leader. Already, the caucus has decided it will establish this via a vote this Sunday. Labour’s caucus, they will become leader. Ardern indicated she would issue her resignation as prime minister to the governor general “soon after”, if that happened. A new PM could, therefore, be in office by early next week.

This will be Ardern and the party’s hope. The longer path to a replacement Ardern was herself elected as leader in 2017 by the Labour Party caucus unopposed. Before that, there were leadership contests that took much longer. Where the caucus can’t find a leader with two-thirds majority support, a contest goes to the wider Labour Party membership and its union supporters. This can be a more bruising and take quite a bit longer. The battle for their support can take several weeks. In 2014, David Cunliffe resigned as party leader on 27 September, replaced by an interim leader.

Nominations for a new leader closed on 14 October and a contest between four candidates ran until 18 November. Andrew Little edged out Grant Robertson for the job. A repeat of the 2014 timeline would see a new prime minister in place some time around the third week of March. The only other time this voting system was used in the Labour Party was for the election of Cunliffe in 2013. It was quicker that time, taking a little over three weeks.