New Zealand PM John Key Announces Surprise Resignation

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key announced his resignation on Monday (Dec 5), saying that he would step down shortly.

“I think as a party we’re doing amazing well, as a party we’re doing really well … But I think (leaders) tend to stay too long,” he said, adding that he had been mulling the decision over the year.

“This is the hardest decision I’ve ever made and I don’t know what I’ll do next,” he said at a press conference. His centre-right National Party is set to meet on Dec 12 to elect a new leader.

“There is no way I could have served out a full fourth term,” Key said, citing family reasons for his departure.

“I think in reality if I served six months or a full-year, I would have inevitably had to look down the barrel of a camera and say ‘I will serve a full three years’. I would therefore have mislead the public and that is not the way of operating.”

Key said will stay in Parliament long enough to avoid a by-election, and that he will vote for Deputy Prime Minister Bill English if he puts his name forward for leader.

“For 10 years now Bill and I have worked closely as a team,” said Key. “I have witnessed first-hand his leadership style, his capacity for work, his grasp of the economy, his commitment to change and most of all his decency as a husband, as a father, a colleague and as a politician.”

In a statement, English thanked Key for his service to the country. “John’s intelligence, optimism and integrity as leader of the National Party and Prime Minister of New Zealand means he will be judged by history as one of New Zealand’s greatest leaders.”

He added: “While the gap he leaves is huge we understand and respect his decision to step down from a job from which there is no respite. We wish John and his family every success with their life out of the public eye.”

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull described Key as “an extraordinary and inspiring world leader” in a tribute on twitter, adding that “his resignation is a great loss” for New Zealand and the world.

Key, 55, who is in his third term as prime minister, was first elected to the country’s top job in 2008, ending the nine-year rule of Labour’s Helen Clark. He has been the leader of the National Party since 2006, and his party was re-elected to government in 2014.

A former foreign exchange dealer who worked at firms including Merrill Lynch, Key won praise with his stewardship of the NZ$240 billion (US$170 billion) economy in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and two devastating earthquakes around Christchurch.

Watch Key’s announcement below: