Sanna Marin became Finland's next PM at 39 years old, replacing Antti Rinne. (Image via DW)

Sanna Marin, the youngest PM of Finland

Alfonsus Adi Putra
Politics & Economic
Politics
Dec 09, 2019
1718
On Sunday, Finland announced that it is having a new Prime Minister. After holding a vote in Social Democratic Party (SDP), Sanna Marin, former Finland’s Minister of Transportation, won the voting as the next Prime Minister. Sanna Marin is currently 34 years old.

Hence, Marin became the youngest Prime Minister to head the country, currently holding the European Union's rotating presidency. She will be sworn to duty on Tuesday. The second-youngest state leader is Ukrainian premier Oleksiy Honcharuk at 35 years old, and the third-youngest is the PM of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern.

The 34-year-old politician won the vote by a narrow margin to replace Antti Rinne, the 57-year-old PM who stepped down last Tuesday due to losing the confidence of the Centre Party coalition over his handling of a postal strike.

Antti Rinne won the election in April, promising to end the belt-tightening recession over Finland. However, he instead pushed Finland into a political crisis over the plan to cut the wage of 700 postal workers which resulted in a strike.

In November, Finland’s postal services called back the plan. But, the Centre Party lost its confidence toward Rinne. Since SDP is the winning party in April’s election, it got the right to elect a new PM to succeed Rinne. And, Marin was the result.

When being asked about her capability to govern despite her age, Marin deflected the question by saying that Rinne had left her a lot of work to do to rebuild trust. Moreover, the new PM asserted that it was not age nor gender that won her the position; but, it was the trust of the electorate.

As the new generation of Finnish politics is dawning, Marin is going to head center-left coalition parties, all of them are headed by women. But, as a female PM, Marin is not the first. She is the third female PM to head the Nordic country.

Source: https://bbc.in/2E1y09z

Politics , Election , Prime-Minister , Europe , Finland , Sanna-Marin , EU