An example to emulate
The decisions that nations and governments make go a long way in shaping a country and nothing today proves it better than Finland which happens to be one of the first country in Europe to give women voting rights back in 1906 and also the first country in the world to vote women to parliament in 1907. With such a history of gender equality and empowerment, the north European country's new Prime Minister is about to become the world's youngest serving premier and will have a finance minister two years her junior in a new women-led coalition cabinet. All of 34, Sanna Marin from the dominant Social Democrats was chosen by her party as the sole candidate for Prime Minister while Centre Party chief Katri Kulmuni, 32, will get the finance office. Finland's government resigned last week after the Centre Party said it had lost confidence in Social Democrat PM Antti Rinne over his handling of a postal strike. The five parties in power, four of which are led by women, decided to stay in coalition and continue with the same programmes after a reshuffle. Marin is set to take over amid labour unrest and a wave of strikes which will halted production at some of Finland's largest companies. The Confederation of Finnish Industries estimates that the strikes will cost the companies a combined 500 million euros ($550 million) in lost revenue. There are massive challenges awaiting the world's youngest PM who has had a swift rise in Finnish politics since becoming head of the city council of her industrial hometown of Tampere at the age of 27. In a statement that rings loud of educated citizenry without any unnecessary labels of gender identity, Marin said that "I myself have never thought about my age or my gender, but rather about the issues for which I took on politics and about the reasons for which we were trusted in the election". The world looks on in awe that the new set of Finnish leaders is young and all females but it is only too natural a thing for Finland given its history of counting women as equals. Education and an aware citizenry are pivotal in this delightful Finnish example.
