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John Key, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Says He Will Step Down | |
(1 day later) | |
SYDNEY, Australia — New Zealand’s prime minister, John Key, surprised the country on Monday by announcing he would resign next week, citing a desire to spend more time with his family. | |
Mr. Key, 55, has been in office since November 2008 and led the conservative National Party to election victories in 2011 and 2014. The next election is scheduled for next year, and Mr. Key had been seen as the likely favorite. | Mr. Key, 55, has been in office since November 2008 and led the conservative National Party to election victories in 2011 and 2014. The next election is scheduled for next year, and Mr. Key had been seen as the likely favorite. |
Though many people were asking why, answers were elusive. | |
“I think he decided he was simply done with politics particularly when this year his friend David Cameron in the U.K. decided to step down as prime minister and another friend of his, Barack Obama, will next year leave office,” said Stephen Levine, a professor of political science at Victoria University of Wellington. | |
Mr. Key, a former Merrill Lynch executive, said Monday that he had never wanted to be a career politician and did not know what he would do next. | Mr. Key, a former Merrill Lynch executive, said Monday that he had never wanted to be a career politician and did not know what he would do next. |
“Throughout these years I have given everything I could to this job that I cherish, and this country that I love,” he said in a statement. “All of this has come at quite some sacrifice for the people who are dearest to me — my family.” | |
Shelley Mackey, a spokeswoman for Mr. Key, said the prime minister had decided to leave office for personal reasons. | |
Mr. Key said that he would resign on Dec. 12 and that his party would choose a new leader and prime minister that same day. Mr. Key said he would support whomever the party chose but that he would vote for Bill English, his deputy prime minister and finance minister, if Mr. English put his name forward. | Mr. Key said that he would resign on Dec. 12 and that his party would choose a new leader and prime minister that same day. Mr. Key said he would support whomever the party chose but that he would vote for Bill English, his deputy prime minister and finance minister, if Mr. English put his name forward. |
“The expectation is that Bill English will be the new leader of New Zealand,” Professor Levine said. | |
Mr. English, 55, declined to comment. | |
Mr. English was involved in Mr. Key’s initiative to partly privatize state-owned utilities and, like the prime minister, was an enthusiastic supporter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the multilateral trade deal that has been put in doubt with Donald J. Trump’s election to the presidency of the United States. | |
Mr. Key was prime minister during the 2011 earthquake in the city of Christchurch that killed 185 people. | |
During his tenure, Mr. Key pushed for New Zealand to adopt a new flag, saying the old one symbolized a bygone colonial era. But voters chose to keep the old flag in a nationwide referendum. | |
Mr. Key successfully negotiated the first visit of a United States warship to New Zealand in 30 years. The Sampson, a guided missile destroyer, arrived at the port of Auckland last month as part of the 75th anniversary celebrations of the Royal New Zealand Navy. | |
New Zealand’s Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act of 1987 declared that the country’s sea, air and land space were nuclear-free zones. | |
But Mr. Key successfully negotiated the visit of the Sampson without generating internal political controversy or compromising American policy that neither confirms nor denies its vessels are carrying nuclear weapons, Professor Levine said. |
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