New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern starts 2023 with her popularity waning and facing a potentially serious personal health issue.

As opinion polls have revealed a drop in her once stratospheric popularity (below), a special investigation by The Bug’s New Zealand bureau has revealed the NZ PM may be suffering a serious illness.

Stool samples and photographic evidence obtained by The Bug show her once compact, pretty, and odourless faeces (at left in main picture) have deteriorated and are now sloppy, rancid, and noisome coils. (at right in main picture)

The change has been confirmed by cleaning staff at the Prime Minister’s office in Wellington.

“When the PM took office and for her entire first term and for the start of her second term, her stools were petite, lavender-coloured droppings that had the texture of fairy floss and absolutely no smell whatsoever,” said a cleaner who spoke to The Bug on condition of anonymity.

“Whenever she voided her bowels butterflies would appear in the toilet and flutter for the duration of her exertions, as well as small native birds that would chirp so joyously that anyone listening could hardly hear the plops as her smooth, semi-dry yet tiny turds hit the water in the bowl.

“But nowadays it’s very, very different. What’s in the bowl would turn your stomach – huge, sloppy, rancid coils with a smell that would cause a kiwi to take flight.

“The stench is hard to describe. It stinks so much that staff on the same floor as the PM’s office, plus on the floors above and below hers, make any excuse they can to leave the building if they know she’s heading to the toilet and they know not to return for a few hours.”

Political analyst at Wullington University, Rachel Stereotype, said it was difficult to determine if Ms Ardern’s fading popularity was caused by the change in her bowel health or vice versa.

“It’s a chucken und igg sutuation rully,” Ms Stereotype said. “Un thus case Ardern’s popularity us the chucken and her poos are the igg – albeit a sloppy, putrid, disgusting igg.”