Sanna Marin has apologised for the second time in a week after a photograph of two topless women taken at a party inside the Finnish prime minister’s official residence last month was published on social media.
The picture, which has since been deleted, first appeared on the TikTok account of the model and influencer Sabina Särkkä. It shows her and another woman – not Marin – kissing while lifting up their tops, with a “Finland” sign covering their breasts.
“I think the picture is not appropriate, I apologise for it. Such a picture should not have been taken,” Marin said. She said it was taken at the residence, Kesäranta, when she invited friends round after the Ruisrock music festival on 8 July.
Marin, 36, said her guests’ names had been declared in advance to security personnel at the seaside residence, whose name means “summer shore”, in Helsinki. They had spent the evening in the sauna and on the beach, she said, but “otherwise nothing extraordinary happened”.
The apology came after Marin made headlines around the world last week when video emerged of her drinking and dancing exuberantly during another private party at which unsubstantiated reports claimed drugs may have been consumed.
While she told reporters she had never taken drugs – “not even in my teenage years” – and had not seen any being used at the party in a Helsinki apartment on 6 August, the prime minister took a drugs test “to clear up suspicions”. The result, released on Monday, was negative.
Finnish media reported claims – amplified chiefly by far-right and anti-government accounts – that a voice on the video could be heard shouting “the flour gang”, a supposed reference to drugs, but it is not clear the term was used or what it means.
Marin, the world’s youngest prime minister when she was elected in 2019, said her decision-making abilities had been unimpaired. She said she drank only a small amount of alcohol and “could have left to take care of government tasks” if necessary.
Opponents have said her behaviour was inappropriate, her choice of friends showed a lack of judgment, and that leaked photos and videos could expose her to criticism or even blackmail.
But many others have defended her right to party. Finnish women have posted videos of themselves dancing and drinking to show their support for the prime minister, while Marin herself said she hoped that “in the year 2022, it is accepted that even decision-makers get to dance, sing and go to parties”.
She also said, however, that she was “sure” other material existed. “I feel like footage is being shot of me all the time, everywhere, and it doesn’t feel good,” she told reporters last week. “Even normal things are made to look bad.”
The political impact for Marin, who has won praise for her handling of the Covid pandemic and for leading Finland out of decades of neutrality and non-alignment to apply for Nato membership after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has so far been limited.
Antti Lindtman, the head of the prime minister’s Social Democratic party’s parliamentary group, has said he saw “nothing really to write home about” in “dancing at a private event with friends”.
Some, however, are wearying of the furore. The finance minister, Annika Saarikko, of the Centre party, a member of Marin’s centre-left coalition, said she was “confused and tired” of having to comment on the photos and videos.
The education minister, Li Andersson, from the Left Alliance, said she hoped discussion would move on to “more substantive issues” such as “our tasks with regard to this coming difficult winter, the energy crisis, Russia’s war of aggression, fair policies”.
Petteri Orpo, of the opposition National Coalition party, said he hoped media and public attention could now focus on “what the prime minister is not doing. We have an energy crisis, galloping inflation, problems in healthcare. We need leadership”.
New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, was asked by a reporter on Wednesday for her thoughts on Marin’s situation, and the double standards women in politics faced compared with their male counterparts.
Ardern, who took office at 37, said she had a policy of not commenting on other countries’ domestic politics. “But my one general reflection is that ever since I’ve been in this role, I’ve really had a mind to whether or not we are attracting people to these jobs,” she told reporters in Wellington.
“We need people from all walks of life to look to politics and think, ‘That’s a place I feel I can make a positive difference.’”
Ardern added: “How do we constantly make sure that we attract people to politics, rather than perhaps has been historically the case, put them off?”