Finland’s Prime Minister: Nofibland

Date: 21/06/03

The Finns' first female prime minister is ousted after two months in office

IT WAS a horribly short stint for Anneli Jaatteenmaki as Finland's first female prime minister. A scandal about the leaking of sensitive foreign-policy documents caused her downfall after only two months in the job. A new coalition government may have to be formed.

One leaked memorandum had revealed details of a meeting between the previous Finnish prime minister, Paavo Lipponen, and President George Bush. Another recorded details of a State Department briefing. During the election campaign Mrs Jaatteenmaki, who heads the predominantly rural Centre Party, used the memos' contents to good effect, attacking Mr Lipponen for being too keen to back American policy on Iraq when most Finns were against it. Mr Lipponen, a Social Democrat, was livid.

The lady denied she had the documents, saying she had merely been aware of their contents. Yet extracts appeared on her website. Worse, a leak from inside her party implied that she had referred to the documents as in her possession and that she had to protect their source. Police interviewed her. A media frenzy paralysed her government.

This week the original leak was traced to a Centre Party sympathiser in President Tarja Halonen's office. For Finns it stirred up bad memories of allegations that presidential staff members had passed state secrets to the East German intelligence service in the cold war.

Transparency International, an anti-corruption lobby, deems Finland the least corrupt nation in the world. So Finns were shocked when it seemed that Mrs Jaatteenmaki had not told the whole truth. On June 18th, the prime minister came under further attack in parliament. Her coalition allies, the Social Democrats, said they had had enough. So out she had to go.

Finland's first female Prime Minister, Anneli Jaatteenmaki, is ousted after just two months in office.