New Zealand National Party leadership election, 1997

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8 December 1997

2001 →


Candidate	Jenny Shipley

Leader before election

Jim Bolger

Leader after election

Jenny Shipley

Jim Bolger

Jenny Shipley

The New Zealand National Party leadership election was an election for the National leadership position in 1997.

Senior cabinet minister Jenny Shipley grew increasingly frustrated and disillusioned with the cautious pace of National's leader, Jim Bolger, and with what she saw as the disproportionate influence of coalition partner New Zealand First. She began gathering support to replace Bolger in mid-1997. Later that year, while Bolger attended the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, Shipley convinced a majority of her National Party colleagues to back her bid for the leadership. Bolger, seeing that he no longer had the support of his party, resigned, and Shipley replaced him. As leader of the governing party, she became Prime Minister on 8 December 1997.

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