1. Maria Karoliina Ohisalo was born on 8 March 1985 and is a Finnish politician and researcher who served as Minister of the Interior between 2019 and 2021.
25 Facts About Maria Ohisalo
1. 2.
Maria Ohisalo was the only candidate in the Green League leadership election that was held in June 2019.
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Maria Ohisalo co-chaired the Union of Green Youth and Students from 2013 to 2014 and has been a member of the Helsinki City Council since 2017 and an MP since 2019.
4.
Maria Ohisalo was born in 1985 in Vesala in eastern Helsinki.
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Maria Ohisalo lived her childhood in poverty in the suburbs of Helsinki, as her parents were often unemployed, and she spent one year in a shelter.
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Maria Ohisalo's mother continued her studies and worked in the evenings and on weekends.
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Maria Ohisalo was already active in football and athletics at a young age.
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Maria Ohisalo graduated from the Makelanrinne Sports High School in 2004 and received a master's degree in social science from the University of Helsinki in 2011.
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In 2017, Maria Ohisalo defended her doctorate in sociology at the University of Eastern Finland's Department of Social Sciences.
10.
Maria Ohisalo worked as a researcher at the Y Foundation.
11.
In 2010, Maria Ohisalo was elected a member of the Kallio parochial church council, but she resigned when she moved away from the area in October 2011.
12.
Maria Ohisalo has been a member of the Green Union Social and Health Policy Programming Group from 2010 to 2011.
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Maria Ohisalo was chairman of the International Affairs Working Group of the Federation of Green Youth and Students in 2011.
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In 2012, Maria Ohisalo was chairman of the Youth Working Group on the Future of Nordic Cooperation in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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Maria Ohisalo was a member of the board of directors of the Nordic Youth League in 2012.
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Maria Ohisalo was elected to the City Council of Helsinki with 4,400 votes in the 2017 municipal elections.
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Maria Ohisalo was a member of the party council from 2013 to 2015.
18.
Maria Ohisalo was a candidate for the 2014 European Parliament elections and received 3,089 votes.
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Maria Ohisalo was a candidate for the 2015 parliamentary elections and received 4,087 votes, which was only 109 votes less than necessary to be elected.
20.
Maria Ohisalo was nominated for the chairmanship of the Green League in the pre-election vote among party members before the 2017 Tampere party congress and attracted national attention after coming very close to second place among the six candidates, despite being relatively unknown.
21.
Maria Ohisalo was nominated for the parliamentary election in 2019 and became a member of parliament in the constituency of Helsinki.
22.
Maria Ohisalo received 11,797 votes and was the country's seventh most popular female candidate.
23.
In June 2019, Maria Ohisalo was elected chairman of the Greens at the party congress in the city of Pori.
24.
However, as the Greens suffered an election defeat, Maria Ohisalo announced that she would not seek another term as chairman.
25.
Maria Ohisalo has played football in FC Kontu and FC Viikingit and has participated in athletics competing for Helsingin Kisa-Veikot.