Finns can vote their prime minister out of office because of leaked videos of her partying “if they want”, Sanna Marin has said.
The political leader, dubbed the “coolest prime minister in the world” by German tabloid Bild, said she was “still dancing” and drinking, despite a “frenzy” over the footage that forced her to deny taking illegal drugs last year.
Ahead of closely fought elections in April, Marin, 37, said she “didn’t care” about “unwritten rules” for women and how they should behave.
“One of the reasons why it caused that kind of frenzy was the way I looked in the videos, the way I danced,” she told CBS’ 60 Minutes.
“And some people thought ‘that’s not appropriate’, because there are these unwritten rules still.”
She added: “I think we need more politicians that are human … they are representing ordinary people. Why can’t they be ordinary?”
Polls show she is the most popular prime minister in 30 years, but her Social Democrats are trailing the centre-right National Coalition Party ahead of the April 2 election.
The National Coalition Party has support from 22 per cent of voters, with the Social Democrats tied with the Finns Party, which is more Eurosceptic, on 19 per cent.
Marin’s tough stance against Russia since the war on Ukraine has boosted her profile as one of the European left’s political superstars.
She spearheaded Finland’s decision to ditch seven decades of non-alignment and apply to join Nato. She has also been talked up as a future European Commission president.
The prime minister denied taking drugs after the videos of her with about 20 friends, including famous Finnish artists, television hosts and social media influencers, were leaked in August last year. She took a drug test to prove she was clean.
“Those videos weren’t something that I wanted to be leaked. Those were private. It was a private apartment and [they were] private videos. But, of course, that didn’t stop the media from publishing them,” she told the US broadcaster.
She was forced to apologise after a photo of two of her female friends kissing topless in the bathroom of her official residence was leaked just days after the negative results of the test.
The photo was taken after the Ruisrock music festival, which Marin attended.
A photo of her wearing a black leather jacket at the festival went viral after being posted on the selfie-loving leader’s Instagram account, which has more than a million followers.
