Q: In this task, you're given a question, along with three passages, 1, 2, and 3. Your job is to determine which passage can be used to answer the question by searching for further information using terms from the passage. Indicate your choice as 1, 2, or 3.
Question: How old was the Prime Minister when he announced he was stepping down? Passage 1:Melkert was elected as a Member of the House of Representatives after the election of 1986, taking office on 3 June 1986 serving as a frontbencher and spokesperson for Finances. After the election of 1994 Melkert was appointed as Minister of Social Affairs and Employment in the Cabinet Kok I, taking office on 22 August 1994. After the election of 1998 Melkert returned as a Member of the House of Representatives, taking office on 19 May 1998. Following the cabinet formation of 1998 Melkert per his own request asked not to be considered for a cabinet post in the new cabinet, he was seen as a rising star by the Labour Party leadership and was considered as the favorite son to succeed Wim Kok as the next Leader of the Labour Party and was selected as the Parliamentary leader of the Labour Party in the House of Representatives, taking office on 13 July 1998. The Cabinet Kok I was replaced by the Cabinet Kok II on 3 August 1998. In December 2001 the Leader of the Labour Party and incumbent Prime Minister Kok announced he was stepping down as Leader and that he wouldn't stand for the election of 2002, the Labour Party leadership approached Melkert as a candidate to succeed him, Melkert accepted and became the Leader of the Labour Party and Lijsttrekker (top candidate) for the election, taking office on 15 December 2001. The Labour Party suffered a big loss, losing 22 seats and fell back as the fourth largest party and now had 23 seats in the House of Representatives. On May 16 2002 Melkert announced he was stepping down as Leader and Parliamentary leader taking responsibility for the defeat but continued to serve in the House of Representatives as a backbencher.
 Passage 2:Guy Beiner was born and raised in Jerusalem and later moved to kibbutz Glil Yam. After traveling abroad, he relocated to the Negev region. Beiner is a graduate of Tel Aviv University and holds a PhD from the National University of Ireland. He was a Government of Ireland Scholar at University College Dublin, an Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) Fellow at Trinity College Dublin, a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellow at the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies in the University of Notre Dame, a Government of Hungary Fellow at the Central European University in Budapest, a Gerda Henkel Marie Curie Fellow at the Faculty of History of the University of Oxford, a research associate of St Catherine's College, Oxford and a Burns Scholar at Boston College. At Ben-Gurion University, he has repeatedly received the Rector's prize for teaching excellence and was twice the recipient of the David and Luba Glatt Prize for Exceptional Excellence in Teaching. 
 Passage 3:Past exhibits have included: Tchaikovsky, in honor of his trip to New York City for the opening of Carnegie Hall; Marian Anderson, the first African American to sing at the Metropolitan Opera; George and Ira Gershwin, in honor of the centennial of George's birth; and one on Leonard Bernstein, among others. The museum's collection also includes a number of items of interest to music lovers: a program from the Vienna Philharmonic's debut concert on March 28, 1842, a ring owned by Beethoven, a pair of Johannes Brahms's eyeglasses, one of Richard Strauss's notebooks, which contained sketches of Danube, an unfinished poem as well as one of Benny Goodman's clarinets and one of Toscanini's batons. It also includes a sequinned jacket owned and worn by Judy Garland and the trowel used in laying the cornerstone of Carnegie Hall.

A:
1