Former Finnish PM Sanna Marin and her husband Markus Raikkonen have said they have jointly filed for divorce. They both announced it with 2 different stories, each on their own Instagram profile.
But to illustrate the story, the now ex-spouses used the same photo in which they are smiling together: “We filed for divorce by mutual agreement. We are grateful for the 19 years spent together and for our beloved daughter. We are still best friends. We will continue to spend time together as a family and with each other. We hope you will respect our privacy. We will not comment further on this matter.”
The two were married in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, and have a five-year-old daughter. Marin, who was the most media-hyped politician in Finland’s history, met her husband at the age of 18 when both were students in the city of Tampere north of Helsinki. After a long relationship, from which the daughter was born, the couple married in August 2020 in Kesaranta, the official residence of the head of government, a position that Marin had assumed just eight months earlier.
The 37-year-old, defeated in last month’s elections, became the youngest premier in the world in 2019 at the age of 33 at the head of a center-left coalition with 5 female party leaders, 4 of whom are under 35. Under her mandate, he led Finland to historic NATO membership, a decision that was not enough to get him re-elected.
Marin announced just over a month ago that he was renouncing the presidency of the SPD, the Social Democratic Party, in the light of the election results. She at the time revealed that her three-and-a-half years as prime minister were “extraordinarily difficult” on both a political and personal level, testing her staying power.
