Jungner Chosen as SDP Party Secretary
Finland's biggest opposition party, the SDP, has elected former YLE Director Mikael Jungner as its new party secretary. He beat out two other candidates for the job by a wide margin.
He was elected a Social Democratic Party congress in Joensuu on Friday. Jungner had been endorsed by party chair Jutta Urpilainen. She was unanimously re-elected for a second two-year term, with no challenger.
He received 374 votes in the first round of voting, becoming the clear winner over Reijo Paananen, an EU expert from the labour union confederation SAK, and Lari Kangas, a former Foreign Ministry official.
Jungner, a former Microsoft executive, left his post at public broadcaster YLE less than a month ago.
In a speech at the party conference, Urpilainen described the past two years as “bumpy”. She said she was following advice which told her to “stay down if you’re brought down, and see who is kicking you...and it’s a good idea to wonder why someone was kicking you".
Urpilainen Approved for Another Term as Opposition Leader
YLE