Marcus Ajemada Stephen (born 1 October 1969) is a Nauruan politician and former sportsperson who previously was a member of the Cabinet of Nauru, and who served as President of Nauru from December 2007 to November 2011. The son of Nauruan parliamentarian Lawrence Stephen, Stephen was educated at St Bedes College and RMIT University in Victoria, Australia. Initially playing Australian rules football, he opted to pursue the sport of weightlifting, in which he represented Nauru at the Summer Olympics and Commonwealth Games between 1990 and 2002, winning seven Commonwealth gold medals.
After his retirement from weightlifting, Stephen worked at the Bank of Nauru before being elected to parliament at the 2003 elections. Having occupied various portfolios in the Nauruan government under President René Harris, Stephen was sworn in as president after moving a no confidence motion against his predecessor, Ludwig Scotty. His term as president was marked by allegations of corruption and accusations of a coup d'état, as well as the declaration of a state of emergency and a suspension from parliament by the Nauruan Supreme Court in 2008. Two separate elections were called in April and June 2010 after accusations of bribery of government members of parliament, with another state of emergency declared in the period between elections. Stephen resigned from the presidency in November 2011 after further allegations of corruption were raised by opposition factions, and was succeeded by Freddie Pitcher, but was re-appointed to the Cabinet in June 2012 by Pitcher's successor as president, Sprent Dabwido. On 27 August 2019, Stephen was elected as the new Speaker of Parliament during its inaugural session.
Marcus Stephen's father, Lawrence Stephen, served as a Member of the Parliament of Nauru from 1971 to 1977 and again from 1980 to 1986. He is related to the prominent Keke family of Nauru.
Stephen received his high School education in Australia, attending St Bede's College, Melbourne. He has a Diploma in Business Accounting from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. From 2001 to 2003 he was employed in management at The Bank of Nauru.
He initially played Australian rules football for the local team the Aces, but opted to pursue the sport of weightlifting. In 1989 the Nauru Weightlifting Federation (NWF) was founded, primarily to give Stephen, the sole top-class weightlifter in Nauru at the time, the opportunity to compete internationally.
In 1992 he took part in his first Olympic Games in Barcelona. Since Nauru had no Olympic Committee at the time, he successfully applied for Samoan citizenship and was allowed to compete for Samoa. In 1993 the committee was founded and Stephen was able to represent Nauru in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.
When the Olympic torch was carried to Sydney in 2000, Stephen had the honour of being a torch bearer during its stopover in Nauru.
It was at the Commonwealth Games where most of his successes came: In the 1990 Commonwealth Games he surprisingly won a gold medal in the Snatch in the 60 kg class. In the 1994 Commonwealth Games he won three gold medals in the 59 kg class and in the 1998 Commonwealth Games in the 62 kg class he collected three more golds. In his last Games, the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester he won three silvers in the 62 kg class.
At the 1999 World Championship in Athens, he was runner up in the clean and jerk in the 62 kg class.
In 2005 he was elected member of the International Weightlifting Federation Hall of Fame.
In March 2008, it was reported that Stephen had been appointed to the presidency of the Oceania Weightlifting Federation, the Pacific region's official continental weightlifting body.
In January 2009, he was elected president of the Nauru National Olympic Committee, defeating Vinson Detenamo, who had been president of the committee since its recognition by the International Olympic Committee in 1994.
Since 1997 he has been the Treasurer of the Nauruan Olympic Committee. On 3 May 2003 Stephen was elected to the Nauru parliament with a score of just over 215 points, achieving first place in the Ewa and Anetan Constituency.
During the presidency of René Harris, Stephen was and Minister of Finance and of Education from August 2003 until July 2004, a post he had to relinquish when Ludwig Scotty became the new president. In October 2004 he was re-elected to parliament. Following his re election in October 2004 into the Parliament of Nauru, Stephen was appointed as Minister for Nauru Phosphate Royalties Trust; During his first term, due to the nature of a Small Island Developing State (SIDS) such as Nauru, with a political system relying on independent politicians, Stephen synergised several ministry posts including Minister for Economic Development & Industry; Minister responsible for Good Governance; Minister for Justice; Police & Prisons and Internal Affairs. Between November 2004 and May 2006 Stephen held Chairmanship of the Nauru Fisheries & Marine Resources Authority later becoming Minister for Nauru Fisheries & Marine Resources on 13 November 2007.
After Nauru joined the International Whaling Commission (IWC) on 15 June 2005, Stephen was nominated as a delegate for Nauru. He represented Nauru at the IWC-Congress in June 2005 in the South Korean city of Ulsan.
Stephen was re-elected to parliament in the August 2007 parliamentary election. He unsuccessfully stood as a presidential candidate in the vote held in parliament on 28 August, in which Scotty was re-elected.
However, following a successful vote of no confidence in Parliament against President Scotty on 19 December 2007, Marcus Stephen was sworn in as President of Nauru.
In the initial period of his Administration, Stephen moved to continue the practice, commenced by former President Ludwig Scotty, of appointing a separate Foreign Affairs Minister, when Dr. Kieren Keke (a cousin of Stephen) was installed in that post in December 2007. Previously, each President of Nauru had concurrently acted as his own Foreign Affairs Minister, although this was customary rather than a constitutional requirement. Stephen also appointed Frederick Pitcher as Finance Minister, and his Administration inherited the austerity measures associated with the outgoing Scotty Administration.