A twist in Scottish politics. Nicola Sturgeon, Prime Minister for eight years, after being Deputy Prime Minister for seven years, announced her resignation on Wednesday February 15. While her term ran until 2026, she will step down as soon as a successor is appointed.
The surprise is total. Despite a very turbulent period in recent weeks, Mme Sturgeon remained the undisputed leader of politics, the most popular, ahead of all her rivals and opponents; and his party, the Scottish National Party (SNP), is overwhelmingly ahead in the polls. Simply, she feels that she no longer has the energy and enthusiasm necessary to continue.
Red suit, emotion restrained, the Scottish Prime Minister chose to put above all personal reasons to announce to the press, Wednesday, her decision to leave. “Giving all your energy to this position is the only way to do it. The country deserves it. But the truth is, one person can’t do this for too long. For me, the risk is that it becomes too long. A prime minister never quits, especially in this era where there is virtually no privacy. Even things that seem obvious, like having coffee with friends or going for a walk alone, become very difficult. »
Nicola Sturgeon also denounces the “brutality” of modern political life, a criticism that echoes the resignation of Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, who also left office prematurely on January 19, saying “not having enough in the tank”.
A disputed project
So ” a few weeks “ that Mme Sturgeon says he began to have doubts. “I could have continued for a few months, six months, maybe a year, but over time, I would have had less energy to offer to this work. I owe it to my country to say it now. » The day before, on Tuesday, the funeral of a veteran of the struggle for independence, Allan Angus, who died at 89, where she was in the company of a large number of activists from the Scottish National Party, the party she leads , seems to have convinced her to take the plunge. “I am a human being, in addition to being a politician. »
Politically, the last few weeks have been particularly difficult for the Prime Minister. She passed a law to make it easier for trans people to acquire a gender recognition certificate. The majority of the Scottish population did not support the project. The heated debate took the form of a scandal with the decision – blocked at the last moment – to lock up in a women’s prison a man convicted of rape, but who had declared himself a woman. In addition, an investigation into the financing of the SNP, and the role of her husband, president of the party, is underway. Nicola Strugeon sweeps all this away, recalling that she has faced many other crises in the past.
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