Jacinda Ardern engaged to long-time partner Clarke Gayford
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her longtime partner are engaged to be married.
Ms Ardern, 38, and television show host Clarke Gayford, 42, became engaged over the Easter weekend, a spokesman for her office confirmed on Friday.
They declined to comment further.
The prime minister’s press secretary told the New Zealand Herald Ms Ardern had been sporting a ring since that weekend, but she had opted to wear it on her middle finger, not on the customary ring finger.
Ms Ardern was photographed on Friday wearing the band on her middle finger at a ceremony at Pike River Mine on the West Coast.
Asked earlier this year whether she would consider proposing to Gayford, Ms Ardern told the BBC she wanted to "put him through the pain and torture of having to agonise about that question himself".
Ms Ardern and Gayford met in 2012. Last year Ms Ardern gave birth to the couple’s first child, Neve Te Aroha Ardern Gayford, who turns one next month.
The New Zealand leader is the second world leader to give birth in office and the first elected leader to take maternity leave.
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