A good source of inspiration for me is Fareed Zakaria who recently brought Sanna Marin to my attention. Once the youngest female elected to a national leadership. She had many accomplishments to her credit and was impressive in her speaking.
Sanna grew up in a town near Tampere and her father left. Her mother adopted a same sex relationship and that seemed normal to Sanna. Education was equal for all students giving her a step up.
As a young adult she moved in with her boyfriend Markus. A bit later they had a child, Emma. To even up child caring they had the patrimony payments equal. Part of this time she was commuting from Helsinki, about two hours from Tampere where Markus held the fort.
She had joined the Social Democrat Party locally and gradually proved herself. Working on committees she learned policies and connections. When one election ended her party had done well and she was given the position of Prime Minister at the age of 34.
Her first crisis was the Covid pandemic. The initial problem was there was very little information. A key ingredient was trust of the people in the government. There was some opposition to some measures, but generally the population followed the government guidance. Under a European Union there was a protocol to equalize distribution. Health care workers received the first vaccination during December of 2020 and she got hers on June 11, 2021.
Another major crisis was when Russia invaded Ukraine. Finland shares the longest border with Russia in Europe and she felt that despite a long contentious relationship they needed to join NATO. This meant convincing the other 4 coalition parties plus some of the others outside the coalition. They also wanted to join with Sweden who had an awkward problem with Turkey. Some Kurdish fighters were in Sweden and Turkey wanted them back. Finland was able to join a year ahead of Sweden. Finland gave arms assistance to Ukraine and Sanna visited Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Scandals seem to come with the position. She is realistic pointing out "Politics is so much more than the issues." There are scandals that are an abuse of power and then there are personal assaults. Perhaps the best known one was of her dancing to a Finnish pop song and mugging. This led while finally living that one down to another that occurred during a visit to a friends' house where two women were photographed against the words Finland. She never apologized for the dancing video, but did take a drug test. Newspapers found scandals good for sales and helped keep them going as long as they could.
The recent election showed a different configuration which would have left Sanna relatively powerless. At this time her marriage ended. She found herself tired from work and was not able to talk about a lot of it to her husband. She noted that the two of them had watched the Danish series "Borgen" where the marriage of the female Prime Minister also broke. The two had laughed at it on viewing it, but she came to understand the pressures were real. see
http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2022/07/borgen.html
At this time Tony Blair offered her a position with an international organization. After getting permission to withdraw from the Finnish Parliament she accepted. Among other task she helped Ukraine and Moldova in their relations with the European Union.
She writes quite a bit about the proportional representation system, a favourite topic of mine. Her party is one of 5 parties in a coalition out of 9 total parties. Her party the SDP got only about 20% of the voters, but the group negotiated and declared her the Prime Minister. The parties did not all agree on every issue, and compromising was used. Although things were slower, it was obvious a key mechanic was co-operation. In systems where two parties dominate there is very little co-operation. Incidentally Finland out performs most of the world in such areas as longevity and mostly sits at the top for happiness surveys.
As she moves on she feels the world has been going in the wrong direction. Right wing leaders are wanting to carve up the world while the time for joint action is at hand. Climate change, the AI revolution, equality all demand more attention.
One observation she made was that after the Soviet Union breakup the European governments switched budget money from military to other concerns such as health and education. Too bad not all the world adopted this principle.
She closes with an anecdote which I will attempt to paraphrase. A Finnish custom is to go to a sauna and there many decisions can be thought out. Sanna was comfortable with this which is traditionally gender segregated. A male journalist complained that he couldn't get close to the Prime Minister as female journalists could. A female journalist pointed out that was how they were treated over time when males were in control.
"Hope In Action" is a book good to expand your awareness of Finland and the life of a female politician.
Jacket photo by Meeri Koutaniemi
