Juha Sipila formally elected as Finland’s new PM

On May 28th, the Finnish Parliament officially elected the Chairman of the Centre Party, Juha Sipila as the new Finnish Prime Minister.

Sipila was elected with 128 votes against 62 votes. The new Government program is scheduled to be discussed in the plenary session starting on June 2nd.

Newly-elected Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipila (Photo: Internet)

The 54-year-old Sipila has been a successful IT businessman before turning to politics in Finland. He was elected to the Parliament in 2011 and the Chairman of the Centre Party in 2012.

As a student, Sipila worked for a short time in the Finnish Youth Centre, but otherwise, he did not have experience in party politics before being elected to Parliament in 2011 with 5,543 personal votes.

In April 2012, Sipila announced his candidacy for the chairman's position in the party congress of the summer. On June 9th, 2012, the party congress elected him as the chairman, beating Tuomo Puumala in the second round.

Sipila led his party to victory in the 2015 election, where the Centre Party gained 14 more than the previous election. With 30,758 personal votes he was the most popular candidate in the election.

Following the election, he was tasked with forming a government coalition, and as the leader of the Centre Party, he began formal negotiations with the Finns Party and the National Coalition Party in order to form a three-party coalition./.

( Compiled by VNF )