2007

After Scotty was ousted in another vote on 19 December and Marcus Stephen (a cousin of Kieren Keke) was elected president, Keke was named Minister of Foreign Affairs, Telecommunications, and Transport^[6] and Minister Assisting the President of Nauru^[7]

Keke had previously been regarded as a reformist, both through his participation in the Administration of Ludwig Scotty, and because of the reformist discourse of the Nauru First Party, of which Keke is a prominent member. The outgoing Scotty Administration, which had won a landslide election victory only weeks before Keke and others resigned and participated in successive votes of no confidence, enjoyed wide popular support, and was broadly seen in the years 2004-2007 as offering a stable contrast to a previous period of very frequent use of the vote of no confidence, when governments would fall over issues which sometimes reflected relations between personalities rather than the exigencies of the wider national interest. Others would argue that allegations against former minister David Adeang, around which the November and December 2007 no-confidence votes against President Ludwig Scotty were centred, constituted an issue important enough to justify the use of such a Parliamentary device, with its far-reaching consequences.

2008

In 2008, Keke's Foreign Affairs department was preparing for the June 2008 meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Santiago, Chile, owing to Nauru's interest in whaling issues as a Pacific maritime nation and in the related issue of tuna fishing stocks, given the country's tuna fishing activities. The change of stance on whaling adopted by the government of Australia was likely to cause resonances for Keke's Department.

In February 2008 Keke announced that the Nauruan Government was studying the possibility of developing service and maintenance facilities for fishing vessels from countries in the region.^[8]

In March 2008, the Speaker of the Parliament of Nauru, David Adeang, attempted to have Keke expelled from Parliament, by summoning a Parliamentary session, allegedly without informing members of the government, which resulted in the passing of a law forbidding Members of Parliament to hold dual citizenship. President Stephen argued that the law was unconstitutional; Adeang said it was not.^[9] On 28 March, Adeang ordered Keke and another minister, Frederick Pitcher, to vacate their seats in Parliament, since they both hold dual Nauruan and Australian citizenship.^[10] The two ministers refused to do so, and Adeang suspended the sitting.^[11]

In April 2008 Keke was reelected to the Parliament of Nauru and was retained as a leading member of the Administration of President Marcus Stephen.^[12] He was again reelected in 2010.^[13][14]

Keke was replaced as Foreign Minister by Matthew Batsiua on 10 November 2011.^[15]