The new leader of the National Coalition Party, Petteri Orpo, has appointed two new names to his ministerial pack in a cabinet reshuffle on Tuesday.
Paula Risikko, formerly health minister under the previous administration, has been given Orpo’s old post of interior minister. Risikko, a one-time nurse who lost out to Alexander Stubb in the 2014 NCP leadership race, represents the conservative wing of her party and was among the MPs who opposed gay marriage. She has a broad experience as a senior politician and has been described as leader Petteri Orpo’s right hand.
Meanwhile Kai Mykkänen, a 36-year-old Russia expert who entered parliament for the first time last year, has been named the new minister for foreign trade and development.
Mykkänen, who describes himself as a ”green-conservative reformist” supported Alexander Stubb in the recent NCP leadership contest, previously worked for the business lobby the EK and for the banking group Sampo. He is himself the son of a National Coalition Party MP, Jouni Mykkänen.
Mykkänen takes over from MP Lenita Toivakka, who on Tuesday announced she and Orpo had agreed she should step down as minister, following bad publicity which originated over Toivakka’s involvement in a tax-planning storm involving her family's firm.
Unifying force
Meanwhile Orpo himself, who deposed Alexander Stubb two weeks ago, will take up Stubb’s previous role as finance minister. The 46-year-old new party leader, who is seen as a moderate, has been characterised as a unifying force for a National Coalition Party which has recently been beset by internal squabbles.
Since his defeat, Stubb has hinted that he might look for less high-powered roles and spend more time with his family and has turned down a role in the government.
The last of the four NCP ministers will continue to be Sanni Grahn-Laasonen, who will stay in post as education minister. Grahn-Laasonen is charged with continuing to see through a series of controversial savings to Finland’s education and research budget. Orpo has said he will oppose any further cuts to education beyond the current ones, although critics have claimed that, with no further education savings on the table, Orpo’s promise is moot.
