Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin is at the center of a controversy following the broadcast of videos showing her partying. Of course, this “scandal” owes nothing to chance and she had to take a drug test on Friday to prove that she had not taken drugs.
She is young, at least in the political world – 34 years old -, outspoken and opposed to Vladimir Putin’s policy in Ukraine and beyond. Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin is asserting herself over the weeks on the diplomatic front and tension is mounting between Moscow and Helsinki. This Thursday, two Russian fighter jets are suspected of having violated Finnish airspace, the Finnish Ministry of Defense said, while the Nordic country is in the midst of a joint application with Sweden to join NATO.
She defended herself from taking drugs
On Wednesday, party videos showing her dancing with Finnish celebrities surfaced on social media. They are of course disconnected from any political discourse – the evenings in question are private – but they have been relayed en masse, in particular on Twitter by accounts which also relay pro-Russian propaganda. Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin in any case had to justify herself for the first time on Thursday, during a press briefing. The main accusation stems from the use of a Finnish slang word to refer to cocaine in a background discussion – leading some netizens to jump to conclusions about blank spots in the videos. She claimed to the Finnish media that he “neither used drugs nor saw anyone else using them”. The fact remains that the video turns and returns on the networks, with always this nagging commentary of a young political class who would party while the world collapses…
And the business to grow. Sanna Marin was forced to return to the subject on Friday and said she had taken a drug test to show that she had not taken drugs. “In order to dispel any suspicion, I took a drug test today,” she told reporters at her residence. The results are expected within a week and will be published, she added. The Prime Minister admitted to drinking alcohol. “Never in my life, not even in my youth, did I do drugs,” she said.