Finland’s new leftist coalition government has appointed a women-majority cabinet with women taking twelve of the ministerial positions, with seven for men.
The new government, which consists of five parties, all of which are led by women and all but one are led by women from the millennial generation, announced the ministerial appointees on Tuesday under the new leadership of leftist Social Democrat Prime Minister Sanna Marin, Reuters reports.
The leaders of the five parties who make up the ruling coalition are now ministers, with new Centre Party leader Katri Kulmuni becoming finance minister while the leaders of the Greens, the Left Alliance, and the Swedish People’s party remain in their ministerial positions occupied in the previous government.
Ms Kulmuni, the 32-year-old new Centre Party leader, is known for embracing green issues such as climate change but wanting policies that use businesses to reach a carbon-neutral target for Finland by 2035.
34-year-old Interior Minister and Green Party leader Maria Ohisalo, meanwhile, has said in the past that she and her party are supportive of the decriminalization of the use of all illegal narcotics, a move that was not supported by former Prime Minister Antti Rinne.
Finland’s Minister of Education, 32-year-old Left Alliance leader Le Andersson, also supports the decriminalisation of cannabis and is a self-professed Marxist who stated in 2014 that she “understood” animal rights attacks on fur farms despite the attacks being illegal, claiming that she was on a “quest for veganism.”
The last millennial among the party leaders is 34-year-old Prime Minister Sanna Marin herself, who has also described herself as a leftist and addresses her party colleagues as “comrades.”
Finland’s youngest ever Prime Minister, and the current youngest world leader, was raised by her mother and her mother’s lesbian partner after her biological parents separated when she was a child and once stated that she was from a “rainbow family.”
Known as being far to the left within her own social democratic party, Prime Minister Marin is expected by many, including Finnish broadcaster Yle, to outline a much further to the left policy than her predecessor.
Marin faces her first challenge as Finnish leader next week when a confidence motion in the new government is expected to be held in the Finnish parliament on Tuesday.
While Marin handily won a vote to confirm her head of government by 99 to 70 earlier this week, a total of 30 MPs were not present during the vote.
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