When I signed up to become speaker, I thought I could relish the challenge of keeping the assembly alive and administratively clean, while providing an open forum for shareholders to express their opinions, however, as soon as I started the job, I found myself not enjoying it as much as I would have hoped to. NationStates has always been passion based for me, and I just cannot stick with things I do not enjoy doing in the long term. Therefore, I'd like to apologise: these past two months haven't been ideal, and I'm sure that my successor will do a much better job at keeping things running!
In any case, I'd like to nominate @Debussy as the next speaker. Deb has served in the speaker role before, and has proven administrative competence in his stints as speaker and as a government member, making him one of the most qualified candidates to take on the role.
As for me, I won't leave Laz entirely, and I'll probably stick around helping in IM/FA as a staffer if the people there want me to!
In any case, I my nominated successor the best of luck, although I'm sure they won't need it!