His prime minister Scotland Nicola Sturgeon announced today that she is stepping down after eight years in office.

“In my mind and in my heart, I know that the time has come, that the time is right for me, for my party and for the country, and therefore I announce today my intention to step down as prime minister and leader of my party. “, – Sturgeon said at a press conference from Edinburgh, noting that she will remain at the helm of the Scottish government until her successor is found.

She added that her decision was unrelated to recent issues.

“This decision comes from a deeper and longer-term assessment,” he stressed, adding that he had been trying to make a decision for several weeks.

“Relying on this job is the only way to do it,” Starzon said.

“But actually, it can be done for a while. For me now there is a risk that this period will be too long,” he said.

The 52-year-old Scottish leader, who was recently weakened by a bill facilitating the transition, has long been widely popular and is a leader in the fight for a new referendum on Scottish independence from the United Kingdom.

“He couldn’t take it anymore”

In January, following the sudden resignation of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Sturgeon confirmed that she was still “full of energy” and that she was “not at all close” to having to leave.

However, the BBC previously reported, citing a source close to Sturgeon, that she said she “couldn’t take it anymore.”

Nicola Sturgeon became the leader of the ruling Scottish National Party (SNP) and the first Minister of the Scottish Government after her predecessor, Alex Salmond, stepped down in 2014. The Scots then voted 55% in a referendum in favor of keeping Scotland within the United Kingdom.

Since then, Sturgeon has resumed the fight for independence, fueled by Brexit, which most Scots opposed. Sturgeon has since campaigned for a new referendum, which London vehemently rejects.

controversial bill

With electoral victories, Starzon again won a pro-independence majority in the local parliament in May 2021 along with the Greens.

However, it was weakened by the passage of a highly controversial bill in December that made the transition easier by allowing it as early as the age of 16 and without medical advice.

London announced that it would oppose it, and immediately after the vote of its critics, a scandal broke out: a transgender woman convicted of raping women before her transition was imprisoned in a women’s penal colony, which caused a backlash, and then finally transferred to a men’s prison.

Born in the industrial city of Irvine, southwest of Glasgow, to an electrician and a nurse mother, Sturgeon has always been active in politics and joined the SNP at the age of 16 as Deputy Youth Coordinator.

Peter Murrell, her husband, is the CEO of the party. The childless couple met more than twenty years ago at the SNP Youth Conference, of which Sturgeon has been one of the first representatives in the Scottish Parliament since it was founded in 1999.

^{Source: Reuters.}