Sturgeon’s resignation mirrors Ardern’s

There are political and personal reasons as to why Scotland’s First Minister and leader of the Scotland National Party (SNP) Nicola Sturgeon announced her resignation on Wednesday. It can be said that the political reasons were weighty, but it would be inaccurate to overlook the personal.

She said that life in public is brutal, where she could not go for a coffee with friends or take a walk on her own. And quite like former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who said that she did not have it in her to continue as the leader of the country, Sturgeon too felt that she was at the end of her tether as it were.

It meant that she was sensible to weigh her choices and choose private peace and happiness over that of the tumult of public life.

It would be wrong to infer that women leaders are unable to take the pressures of high office. We have the examples of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel who was in office for 16 years and she saw some of the toughest challenges during her time, and of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who was in power for 11 years when the Conservative Party voted her out.

And Queen Elizabeth II ruled for 70 years. Both Sturgeon and Ardern made personal choices and they are perfectly valid because there is more to life than politics.

The political obstacles were there for all to see. Sturgeon wanted a second referendum about independence after the first one in 2014 showed that 55 per cent of Scots wanted to remain with the United Kingdom while 45 per cent opted for independence. But in the 2016 Brexit vote, the Scots opposed the move. It was based on this that Sturgeon had argued for a second referendum. The US Supreme Court had however ruled that the British Parliament had to approve the referendum before it can take place. The Conservative Party, which is in power and with a parliamentary majority, had been opposed to the idea of a second referendum.

The second setback for Sturgeon personally has been the new gender law which she had got passed in the Scottish parliament where the transgenders were allowed to choose their gender identification – male or female – without a medical certificate. The British Parliament had blocked the legislation and a majority of the Scots are opposed to the law. Sturgeon was a little too radical in her ideas of justice and freedom and personal choice, but it was not irrational. There are plenty of problems in the law because it could be misused and it also involved too many grey areas. It was a valid stance though not acceptable at the moment to the majority of Scots.

Sturgeon saw the time right to quit because she saw she was not carrying Scotland with her. She could have changed her political stance and compromised on her views. There was no challenge to her leadership in her party and she could have stayed on. Apart from the fact that she did not feel that she had the energy any more to continue, she also felt that her personal brand of politics and political views was diverging from the majority of Scottish people.

The next election, she said, would be fought on the issue of the independence of Scotland because the referendum option was denied, and perhaps she felt that she was not on firm ground even on that. It is quite unlikely that 55 per cent of the Scots who had voted to be with England last time had changed their mind even though a majority of them would prefer to stay in the European Union (EU).