Suvi-Anne Siimes

Who is Suvi-Anne Siimes?

Sini Maaria Suvi-Anne Siimes is a former chair of the Finnish Left Alliance. She quit the party in 2006 because she did not want to support the party's former taistoists.

Before her political career she had several short teaching posts in University of Helsinki and Kauppakorkeakoulu and she was planning a scientist / researcher career in economic sciences Her political career started in local politics in Pohja

She was chairperson of the Finnish Left Alliance 1998–2006 and was a member of the Finnish Parliament from 1999 to 2007. She served as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and a delegate for Finland in the Nordic Council. In the two Cabinets of Paavo Lipponen, Siimes served as the Coordinate Minister for Culture and as the Minister of Finance. From 1995 to 2000, she was a deputy member of the European Union Committee on Regional Development.

In March 2006 she resigned from the Left Alliance, stating she didn't want to support the election of former taistoists like Jaakko Laakso to the Parliament of Finland in the next elections 2007 and that she could not continue in politics after she had not succeeded in making the Left Alliance a modern leftist political party with modern European attitudes and practices.