Sanna Marin to be sworn-in as Finland's youngest-ever prime minister

"I have never thought about my age or gender," said the leader

FINLAND-GOVERNMENT/PM Finland's Social Democratic Party leader Sanna Marin | Reuters

With 32 votes, Sanna Marin is set to become Finland's youngest-ever Prime Minister. The Social Democratic leader narrowly won after Antti Rinne, resigned on December 3 after losing the confidence of coalition partner Centre Party over his handling of a postal strike. Rinne stepped down after failing a political crisis over a plan to cut wages for 700 postal workers.

At 34-year-old former transport minister will be the world's youngest PM, ahead of Ukraine's prime minister Oleksiy Honcharuk, who is currently 35.

"We have a lot of work to do to rebuild trust," Marin told reporters on Sunday night while deflecting questions about her age.

"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."

Her opponent Antti Lindtman received 29 votes from members of the Social Democratic Party Council, while Marin received 32 votes.

Marin, a second-term MP from Tampere holds a Master's in Administrative Studies and is married with a toddler.

Former PM Antti Rinne had headed Finland's centre-left five-party coalition since June. Marin's appointment is unlikely to lead to significant policy changes by the Social Democrat-led administration.

"We have a shared government programme which we have committed to," Marin said.

Marin was elected head of the city council in Tampere in 2012 when she was 27-years-old. She was raised in a ‘rainbow’ family by a single mother who was in a same-sex relationship. She told the Finnish women’s magazine Menaiset in 2012 that she felt invisible as a child because of how society would not talk about same-sex relationships.

Rinne’s resignation was prompted by a two-week postal strike that drew nationwide sympathy after it emerged that 700 package handlers were going to have their salaries reduced after a transfer of their contracts. The strike spread to the country’s national airline Finnair—causing hundreds of flights to be cancelled— as well as to other industries, prompting calls for the PM’s resignation.

The SDP won April's legislative elections on promises to end years of economic belt-tightening introduced by the Centre Party to lift Finland out of a recession.

Parliament is expected to formally swear in the new prime minister on Tuesday.