34-year-old Sanna Marin has become Finland’s youngest Prime Minister ever after winning Sunday’s election.
Sanna is to replace former Prime Minister Antti Rinne who resigned on Tuesday, December 3, after losing the confidence of the coalition partner Centre Party over his handling of a postal strike.
The former transport minister whose party is the largest in a five-member governing coalition will be the world’s youngest serving prime minister when she takes office in the coming days.
“We have a lot of work ahead to rebuild trust,” Marin told reporters after winning a narrow vote among the party leadership.
“I have never thought about my age or gender, I think of the reasons I got into politics and those things for which we have won the trust of the electorate.”
Sanna had a swift rise in Finnish politics since becoming head of the city council of her industrial hometown of Tampere at the age of 27. She will be taking over in the middle of a 3-day wave of strikes, which will halt production at some of Finland’s largest companies from Monday, December 9.
The Confederation of Finnish Industries estimates the strikes will cost the companies a combined 500 million euros (US$550 million) in lost revenue.
