Finland's head of government, Sanna Marin (SDP), is by far the country's most popular Prime Minister of this century, according to the results of a survey conducted by news group Uutissuomalainen.
Roughly one in three respondents favoured Marin as the best PM Finland has had throughout the 2000s, and she received broad support across all demographics covered by the survey.
In second place was SDP's Paavo Lipponen (1995-2003) with 13 percent support, while the Centre Party's Matti Vanhanen and Juha Sipilä shared third place, each receiving eight percent support.
Speaking to Uutissuomalainen, professor of Political Science Heikki Paloheimo said that the government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic may have played a part in Marin's popularity.
"For example, in an early 2021 poll, about 60 percent of respondents said that Marin’s government performed well or fairly well," Paloheimo said.
Marin was less popular among high-earning respondents, especially those earning more than 100,000 euros a year, who expressed their preference for the two former National Coalition Party leaders, Jyrki Katainen and Alexander Stubb.
The least popular prime ministers in the poll each held the position for less than one year, with Antti Rinne (SDP), Mari Kiviniemi (Cen) and Anneli Jäätteenmäki (Cen) all garnering less than one percent support.
A total of 1,000 people resident in Finland responded to the survey organised by the news group, and the results were published with a 3.1 percent margin of error.