OUT OF OFFICE

Can a Prime Minister have work-life balance? Sanna Marin tried.

- BY JENNIFER WILSON

The former Finnish leader became the subject of intense media scrutiny.

On a Saturday night in December of 2021, a text message was sent to Sanna Marin, then the thirty-six-year-old Prime Minister of Finland. The message, however, went to a work phone that she had deliberately left at home that evening; she had a date night with her husband, Markus Räikkönen, a former soccer player turned tech entrepreneur. The couple had dinner with friends, stopped by a cocktail bar near the Helsinki harbor, and then went dancing at Butchers, a night club named to evoke New York City’s meatpacking district.

On Sunday morning, Marin woke up and read the message. It was a briefing stating that the foreign minister might have COVID and that anyone who'd had contact with him the day before, as she had, should self-isolate, even if vaccinated. This was stricter than prior guidance, and Marin prepared for the fallout.

Three older male government officials also went out that weekend, but it would be pictures of Marin at the club, young and photogenic, which were splashed across the website of the Finnish gossip magazine Seiska. On Wednesday, amid mounting criticism from her political opponents on the right, Marin, a Social Democrat, held a press conference in front of the parliamentary building to apologize. Not all members of the Finnish press were convinced of her contrition. One journalist asked if it was a joke or just a coincidence that she had been drinking a Corona.