Prime Ministers of New Zealand

The role of the Prime Minister

The station of Prime Minister of New Zealand is the political station most important and most influential of New Zealand.

The role of the Prime Minister is not defined formally in the Constitution, but he answers conventions adopted for a long time. The Constitution mentions just the role of the Cabinet which is conventionally directed by the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister is generally regarded as first among equals , meaning that the Prime Minister is indeed the chief of the Cabinet but it or it is also constrained {E} to respect and to subject itself to the decisions taken by the Cabinet. The capacity of the Prime Minister to give orders direct is particularly restricted and its effective capacity comes in fact from other prerogatives:

the installation of about a day of the Cabinet (what makes it possible to control which discussions will take place);
the possibility of dislocating and of naming the members of the Cabinet. This capacity can be used in a more restricted way: the New Zealand workers party with decided that was with its Caucus to name the members of the Cabinet and not to the Prime Minister. The only role of the Prime Minister in the formation process of the Cabinet is the attribution of various competences to the members of the Cabinet;
the possibility of holding of the anticipated elections after having informed the general governor of it.

Other nonconstitutional levers are at the disposal of the Prime Minister:

the influence which it has within its own party of which it or it is generally it or the chief. That makes it possible to have an influence on the members of the Cabinet who often belong to the same party;
capacity coming from the authorization to publicly criticize the work of the other members of the Cabinet.

By convention, the Prime Minister is selected like the chief of the party or the coalition of party having the relative majority to the Parliament. There exists also a post of Deputy Prime Minister.

The term of Prime Minister to appoint the chief of the New Zealand government goes back to 1893, before one used off the expression Premier New Zealand .

Thirty seven people followed one another the post of Prime Minister since 1856 with certain Prime Ministers carrying out several returns to this station. The record of returns to the post of Prime Minister is held jointly by William Fox and Harry Atkinson with each one four returns. The longest mandate was that of Richard Seddon which remained thirteen years at the station. The shortest mandate was that of first Prime Minister Henry Sewell who remained thirteen days Prime Minister, the shortest mandate can also be considered that of Harry Atkinson, which at the time of its third mandate remained only seven days but on the whole Atkinson remained Prime Minister longer.

New Zealand is also one of the two countries in the world to have had consecutively two women Prime Ministers.

External bond

Official site of the Prime Minister

Simple: Precede Minister New Zealand off

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