Finland’s PM draws cheers, jeers over partying
HELSINKI, Finland — Last fall, Prime Minister Sanna Marin of Finland, a 36-year-old leather-jacket-wearing regular at rock festivals, vowed that she wanted to “live like a person my age” and “shake up” the highest office in the government.
A year later, she has done just that.
Videos leaked last week of Marin dancing boisterously at a party have spiraled into a noisy national drama that has split this usually placid nation of 5.5 million between those clamoring for her resignation and those cheering her on.
In Finland and beyond, the issue has fueled a debate about what is — and is not — appropriate behavior for a prime minister.
“In the space of one generation, Finland has changed from a joyless, buttoned-up Protestant society into something very modern and digital,” said Roman Schatz, a German Finnish author.
“Sanna Marin is part of that new Finland,” he added. “We’re seeing the birthing pains of Finland 3.0.”
When she took office in 2019, at 34, Marin was among the youngest leaders in the world and headed a coalition of five parties, four of them led by women in their 30s. Ten of her ministers are women, nine are men.
“This hurts a certain type of elderly man,” said Tarja Halonen, who was in her 50s when she became the country’s first female president, in 2000.
“They are afraid of the situation — that it’s more and more normal that women of all ages take political roles and that women are now more the rule than the exception,” she added.
After a far-right message board claimed last week that the term “jauhojengi” or “flour gang” — which it interpreted as a reference to cocaine — was shouted in the background of one of the leaked dance videos, the Finnish news media jumped on it. Marin took a drug test, saying that she had never taken drugs, not even as a teenager.
The test came back negative — but the same day, a photograph surfaced of two women exposing their breasts and kissing in the press room of the prime minister’s official residence during another party, rekindling the outrage.
“What’s next? A porn film?” asked Matti Virtanen, a 59-yearold construction worker waiting for the bus in central Helsinki.
“This gives Finland a bad image — I’m ashamed,” said a 74year-old grandfather, who identified himself only as Johannes.
In fact, the commentary from abroad has been mostly glowing.
Yasmine M’Barek, writing in the German weekly Die Zeit, summed it up this way: “Sanna Marin is the prototype of a successful millennial in politics. Live with it!”
That sentiment was widely shared among some young Finns.
“It’s inspirational!” beamed Miisa Myllymäki, a 23-year-old bartender. “She shows that you can be young and human and still do politics in Finland, and that’s good because sometimes it can feel like politics is just for older people.”
This week, Marin briefly became tearful when she addressed the fallout from the dispute.
“I’m a human being and sometimes I, too, need joy and fun in the middle of dark clouds,” she said. “I haven’t missed a single day of work and haven’t left a single task undone, and I won’t even in the middle of all this, because all of this will pass and together we must make this country stronger.”