She has become the Prime Minister of her country at the age of 34, after serving as the Transport Minister for some time! Not only Finland, but the world gets its youngest Prime Minister in form of Sanna Marin!
The Government in Helsinki recently fell after the Centre Party left the ruling coalition over a dispute over a strike called by the Postal Department employees. Antti Juhani Rinne resigned as Prime Minister after facing defeat in a Confidence Vote recently. Then, the Social Democrats elected Marin as the PM. Although Marin won by a small margin, she became the world’s youngest premier!
Asked whether she was prepared to take such a great responsibility at a young age, the new Finnish Prime Minister said: “I myself have never thought about my age or my gender, but rather about the issues for which I took on politics and about the reasons for which we were trusted in the elections.”

Sanna Marin

Meanwhile, diplomats believe that Marin will have to face tough challenges, as some parts of this Nordic country are in an unstable condition because of pay cuts of some Postal Department employees! The party leader had to resign under pressure… and, the ruling coalition postponed the reform of the Postal Department. Now, the youngest Premier will have to handle the pressure as Rinne’s successor!
Finland is also under pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the wake of Climate Change issues. Immediately after becoming the PM, Marin said that her Government would remain committed to protect the environment, stressing: “We have a lot of work to do to rebuild trust.”
A section of diplomats is of the opinion that majority of the people are happy with Marin’s appointment as the PM. Interestingly, all the five parties in power are led by women! While Marin leads the Social Democratic Party, Li Anderson (32) heads the the Left Alliance, Maria Ohisalo (34) leads the Green League, newly appointed Finance Minister Katri Kulmuni (32) heads the Centre Party and Anna-Maja Henriksson (55) is at the top of the Swedish People’s Party.

The Global Community has already started comparing Marin with Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern (39). Like Jacinda, she is also a mother of a one-year-old baby. Marin is the only member of her family who attended the University. At that time, no one could imagine that she would become the Prime Minister of Finland. The daughter of a working class family has made the seemingly impossible feat, possible…
Born on November 16, 1985, Marin completed her study at High School in 2004 at the age of 19. She graduated in Administrative Sciences from the University of Tampere three years later, and joined politics at 27. After becoming a member of the Tampere City Council, Marin got an opportunity to serve as the Chairperson of the local administration. She was appointed the Second Deputy Chairperson of the Social Democratic Party in 2014 before becoming the Member of Parliament in 2015. Marin took over as Minister of Communications and Transport on June 6, 2019.

Marin with Räikkönen

Marine is yet to get married, as she is in a live-in relationship with her friend, Markus Räikkönen. Both of them have plans to marry soon. Marin, herself, is the child of a ‘same-sex’ couple. She was brought up by her mother and her (mother’s) partner. It may be one of the reasons why Marin likes to keep her personal life a secret. Now, the 34-year-old is ready to take care of her countrymen…

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das