By Athena Papakosta

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has done something that no one expected – not his colleagues in the Fine Gael party, not those in the centre-right coalition government, not even the country’s media. He announced his resignation from both the prime ministership and the leadership of his party citing “personal as well as political reasons”.

As noted by Irish media, viewers watched in amazement as Varadkar stood in front of the steps leading to the prime minister’s office and emphasized that “after seven years as prime minister, I don’t feel I’m the best for the job.”

For the British The Guardian, Varadkar’s political thunderbolt would make even one of his heroes, Otto von Bismarck, not hide his approval. But Leo Varadkar was never an ordinary Irish politician.

His father is from India and immigrated to Ireland where he met his mother, who was a nurse. Following in his father’s footsteps, he himself studied to be a doctor while, as he grew up in the suburbs of Dublin, he did not hide that he aspired to become the Minister of Health.

He entered politics early on, with many calling him the “child of the Tories”, while he was elected as an MP for the first time in 2007 at the age of 28. During his political “career” he took over the Ministries of Transport, Tourism and Sports as well as the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social Protection.

In 2015, he publicly declared that he is gay, clarifying that his sexual orientation is simply a part of himself. A few months later, the country that considered homosexuality a criminal offense until 1993 said “yes” to same-sex marriage, while two years later it would elect him as prime minister. It was the first country in the world to allow same-sex marriage after a referendum and Leo Varadkar the first gay and youngest Prime Minister in its history.

In 2018 he led his country to once again turn its back on the conservatism embodied in this Catholic Church and 68% of Irish people voted in favor of abortion and the repeal of the 8th amendment which banned it.

However, a few weeks ago, while Varadkar was serving his second term as prime minister, Ireland went ahead with a referendum to remove an outdated article of the Irish Constitution that emphasizes the importance of women’s lives “inside the home” and encourages mothers not work in order to fulfill their household duties.

73.9% of the participants voted against and the woman in Ireland, a Member State of the European Union, remains… a housewife according to her Constitution. 12 days later, Leo Varadkar submitted his resignation both as Prime Minister of the three-party coalition and as president of the Fine Gael party, clarifying that, for now, he has no plans for the future.

“I am not a half Indian politician or a doctor politician or a gay politician” he had declared a few years ago and yesterday Wednesday it seems that he decided that he did not want to be even half a prime minister.

As he explained, part of good leadership is “knowing when it’s time to hand the baton to someone else” but also “having the courage to do it.”

The moment for Leo Varadkar has come and he may have resigned by now but for many he looks like a winner.