Juha Sipilä

Juha Petri Sipilä (born April 25, 1961 in Veteli ) is a Finnish politician ( center ). He was Prime Minister of Finland from May 29, 2015 to June 6, 2019 .

Juha Sipilä (2015)

Life

The engineer and entrepreneur was elected to the Finnish parliament for the first time in the 2011 general election. He then became deputy group leader of the center.

In April 2012, he announced his candidacy for the office of party chairman. At the party congress on June 9, 2012, he was elected in the second ballot with 1251 votes, his rival Tuomo Puumala received 872 votes. Sipilä thus succeeded Mari Kiviniemi , who had not taken office after two years as chairwoman. After only a year in parliament, Sipilä was largely unknown to the general public in Finland. Even in the party apparatus, he had not been noticed by his good network. However, he has been a member of the center since his youth, starting with the party's youth association. His election was interpreted by political observers as an attempt at a new beginning, without the shadow of the 2008 party donation scandal.

After the parliamentary elections in April 2015 , in which the Center Party won the most votes, Sipilä was tasked with forming a new government. His cabinet consisting of the Center, the Collection Party and the True Finns was officially appointed by President Sauli Niinistö on May 29, 2015 .

On March 8, 2019, Sipilä announced that he was stepping down from his post as Prime Minister. He submitted a corresponding request to the Finnish President. The background is a failed reform of the social and care system.

Sipilä is a Christian and a believer in Laestadianism as well as a member of the Rauhan Sana movement (in German, The Word of Peace ). He has been married to Minna-Maaria Sipilä since 1981. The couple have five children, four sons and one daughter. On February 18, 2015, Sipilä's youngest son Tuomo died at the age of 22.

Censorship allegations

Juha Sipilä is accused of influencing the public television service Yleisradio in order to prevent reporting. Specifically, it is about news about a decision in which he was involved as head of government. This ruling will keep a bankrupt company with millions in taxpayers' money going, allegedly benefiting members of his family. The case is being investigated by Reporters Without Borders .

Web links

Commons : Juha Sipilä  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Personal website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ centers valde förnyelse. Hufvudstadsbladet , June 10, 2012, archived from the original on January 30, 2013 ; Retrieved July 10, 2012 (Swedish). 
2. ↑ EU-critical party joined government for the first time. Handelsblatt , May 29, 2015, accessed on May 29, 2015 . 
3. ^ Zeit Online: Prime Minister Juha Sipilä has resigned. Zeit Online, March 8, 2019, accessed March 8, 2019 . 
4. ↑ Juha Sipilä steps back from election campaign after son dies. Yle Uutiset , February 19, 2015, accessed November 14, 2018 . 
5. ↑ Attempted TV Censorship in Finland: Hacked? Or does it hack? taz , December 12, 2016, accessed December 13, 2016 . 
6. ↑ RSF condemns Finnish premier's harassment of state TV journalists. December 3, 2016, accessed December 13, 2016 .