Wellington: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her long-term partner Clarke Gayford got engaged to be married, her office said Friday.

While the 41-year-old Gayford is the host of a TV fishing show, and takes care of their ten-month-old daughter Neve Te Aroha, Ardern, 38, runs the country.

A spokesman for Ardern and Gayford said the couple agreed to tie the knot over the Easter break. However, the wedding date has not been revealed.

Ardern, 38, had Neve last June, becoming only the second prime minister in the world to give birth while in office and later taking the infant onto the floor of the UN Assembly in New York.

The couple met in 2013 when Gayford went to complain to a member of parliament about the then-National Party government's proposed changes to security legislation. He bumped into Ardern, who was a rising star of the Labour Party. They became close and turned friends. Soon, the couple were living together.

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The engagement comes after a trying time for Ardern, who has been widely praised for her response to the March 15 Christchurch mosque shootings that claimed the lives of 51 Muslim worshippers.

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