() — Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin and her husband Markus Räikkönen have decided to divorce after 19 years together, the policy announced Wednesday on Instagram.
“We have started the divorce process together. We are grateful for our 19 years together and for our beloved daughter,” Marin wrote in an Instagram story.
“We continue to be best friends, kind to each other and loving parents. We will continue to spend time together as a family and with each other,” he added.
Marin and Räikkönen, a businessman and former professional soccer player, married in 2020, according to the Finnish public broadcaster YLE.
The announcement comes after Marin lost Finland’s parliamentary elections in April, in which the right-wing National Coalition Party (PNC) emerged victorious in a close contest.
Marin currently holds the position of interim prime minister until a new coalition government is formed.
Although her supporters around the world consider her a model for new progressive leaders, Marin has faced criticism in Finland over her party and her government’s high public spending.
While it remains very popular with many Finns, especially young moderates, it has clashed with some conservatives over its high spending on pensions and education.
Marin’s rise to the top of Finnish politics was withering.
The first in her family to go to university, she entered politics at age 20 and rose quickly through the ranks of the center-left Social Democratic Party.
She then became the world’s youngest prime minister when she took office in 2019 at the age of 34.
