HELSINKI, Finland — Last fall, Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin, a 36-year-old leather-jacketed regular at rock festivals, vowed she wanted to “live like a person my age” and “shake up” the highest offices in government. A year later, he did just that. Marin guided her country through the pandemic with one of the lowest death rates in Europe and then traveled to Sweden in her leather jacket to drum up support for a major push to join NATO in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine. Subscribe to The Morning newsletter from The New York Times Her popularity rating is close to a record high. But right now, no one is talking about any of that. Leaked videos last week of Marin dancing boisterously at a party have turned into a raucous national drama that has divided this usually placid nation of 5.5 million between those calling for her resignation and those cheering her (including of a man tattooed on his calf with the image of Marin kneeling on the floor). In Finland and beyond, the issue has raised the question of whether, as a young woman leading her country, Marin is held to different standards than older, male leaders. It has also sparked a debate about what is – and what is not – appropriate behavior for a prime minister. As a result, he has become a polarizing figure in a country that, some say, has not quite caught up to the fact that it has become a beacon of progressive modernity. “In the space of a generation, Finland has changed from an indifferent, buttoned-up Protestant society to something very modern and digital,” said Roman Schatz, a German-Finnish author of a book on Finland, who pointed out that dancing was illegal in the country against the Second World War. “Sanna Marin is part of this new Finland,” he added. “We’re seeing the birth pangs of Finland 3.0.” Lauri Tierala, a former adviser to one of Marin’s predecessors, put it this way: “He’s become a symbol of what’s acceptable — and what’s not.” The story continues Even by Finnish standards, Marin is exceptionally young and her government exceptionally female. When she took office in 2019, aged 34, Marin was among the youngest leaders in the world – more than 20 years younger than her two immediate male predecessors when they took office – and headed a coalition of five parties, four of which were led by women in their 30s. Ten of its ministers are women, nine are men. “This hurts a certain type of old man,” said Tarja Halonen, who was 50 when she became the country’s first female president in 2000. (She left office a decade ago, but, at 78, is (still a year younger than President Joe Biden.) “They fear the situation – that it is increasingly normal for women of all ages to take up political roles and that women are now more the norm than the exception,” she added. Marin definitely leans into the concern she can inspire, posting images of her daughter breastfeeding on Instagram and at a rock concert in boots and jean shorts. She openly recounts growing up in a “rainbow family” because her mother fell in love with a woman after divorcing her alcoholic father. The first in her family to go to university, Marin still buys her sparkly festival clothes at the flea market. Her husband, a former soccer player, took parental leave to care for their daughter, now 4, when Marin first took office. “I represent the younger generation,” Marin told Finland’s public broadcaster in October, noting, “Sometimes it feels like my existence is a challenge to some.” There was no shortage of fodder for anyone who wanted to be challenged. Marin’s penchant for partying, which earned her the moniker ‘Party Sanna’ early on, has catapulted her into the headlines in the past. “Party Sanna strikes again! Prime Minister Marin drank beers, snapped her fingers at the bartender and danced wildly in Helsinki’s nightlife,” Seiska magazine headlined last December, after Marin was seen at a bar called Grotesk and, later, at a nightclub called it’s called Butchers. Just a few weeks earlier, the Prime Minister had taken to her Instagram account, essentially telling the older generation to relax. “Hey boom boom boomer, put some ice in your hat, be cooler,” she wrote, quoting a line from a Finnish rap song. But this time, the reports haven’t gone away so easily. 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, Finnish media reacted. the. Marin took a drug test, saying she had never taken drugs, not even as a teenager. The test came back negative – but on the same day, a photo emerged of two women baring their breasts and kissing in the press room of the prime minister’s official residence during another party, reigniting outrage. “What’s next? A porn movie?” asked Matti Virtanen, a 59-year-old construction worker waiting for the bus in central Helsinki. “This gives Finland a bad image — I’m ashamed,” said a 74-year-old grandfather, who identified himself only as Johannes. In fact, the comments from abroad were mostly glowing, if not positively jealous of Marin’s relative youth. “I know this clip might confuse Americans,” comedian Trevor Noah said of a dance video. “Some countries have leaders who don’t suffer from osteoporosis.” Bruce Oreck, a former bodybuilder who was the US ambassador to Finland from 2009 to 2015 and still spends part of the year in the country, said the United States should take note. “This is so genealogical,” Oreck, 69, said. “There’s an incredible reluctance of the older generation to pass the torch,” he added, noting, “No decision that any of these members of Congress make today will affect them. They are not going to live through the climate crisis.” “The purpose of an institution is to serve the present and future population, not to maintain the institution itself,” he said. 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 the young Finns who emerged from a row of wooden cabins at a public sauna in Helsinki on a recent afternoon to take a dip in the Baltic Sea. “It’s inspiring!” looked at Miisa Myllymäki, a 23-year-old bartender whose boyfriend recently served the prime minister at Flow, one of Finland’s biggest music festivals. “It 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 only for old people.” At Siltanen, a music venue in the center of Helsinki, Johanna Helle, also known as DJ Uha, was on the decks. “The media targets the prime minister all the time — she’s a woman and she’s young,” Helle said, calling the episode “clickbait.” Niko Vilhelm, one of the lead singers of Blind Channel, a so-called “violent pop” group that represented Finland at last year’s Eurovision Song Contest, said he was on a tour bus when his phone lit up with notifications and memes on social media networking. for the prime minister’s party. “The headlines went crazy. I’ve never seen anything like it. And it hasn’t stopped,” Wilhelm said. “The media needs to chill.” Across town, in the sweeping third-floor newsroom of Iltalehti, the tabloid that first released the dance video, Juha Ristamäki, the political editor, defended his decision. “We live in a state of alarm because of the Russian threat,” Ristamäki said. “When you look at her behavior against that background, it’s time to question whether she was up to the task.” There was nothing wrong with her political record, he conceded: “She’s very popular and has had very good times. When Russia invaded, it was quite effective in starting the application to join NATO. She has kept many of her promises.” “But was it appropriate for the institution to be at 4 in the morning in a nightclub and be drunk,” asked Ristamäki. Ismo Leikola, a Finnish stand-up comedian who lives in Los Angeles, said he was confused by the criticism. “Just—dance,” he said. In his view, the Finnish tourism service should use the videos to sell his country as “the party capital of the world”. This week, Marin briefly broke down in tears as she addressed the aftermath of the controversy. “I’m human and sometimes I need joy and fun in the middle of dark clouds,” he said. “I haven’t missed a day of work and I haven’t left a single task undone and I’m not going to stand in the middle of it either because this will all pass and together we must make this country stronger.” © 2022 The New York Times Company
