Mikkel Antte Iisakki Näkkäläjärvi (born 19 June 1990 in Inari) is the Party Secretary of the SDP. He served as the chairman of the Social Democratic Youth from 2016 until 2020 and is the second vice-chairman of the Rovaniemi City Council. Since spring 2020, he has been working as the regional manager of Northern Finland for the service sector trade union PAM.
Näkkäläjärvi has served as Vice President of the Finnish Association of Student Unions and as President of the Nordic and Baltic Social Democratic Youth.
Political career
Näkkäläjärvi was named Finland's UN Youth Delegate 2015. Näkkäläjärvi was the SDP's parliamentary candidate in the Lapland constituency in the 2015 parliamentary election. He received 640 votes and was not elected.
He was elected President of the Social Democratic Youth at the 2016 Federal Assembly. He was re-elected for another term at the 2018 Federal Assembly. At the 2020 Federal Assembly, Näkkäläjärvi did not seek another term.
In the 2017 municipal elections, Näkkäläjärvi was elected as a first-time candidate to Rovaniemi City Council with 335 votes. In the 2021 municipal elections, Näkkäläjärvi was elected for a further term to Rovaniemi City Council with 344 votes.
In the
2019 European Parliament election
The 2019 European Parliament election was held in the European Union (EU) between 23 and 26 May 2019. It was the ninth parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979. A total of 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) we ...
, Näkkäläjärvi received 10,761 votes and was not elected. During the early voting period, a controversy arose when it was revealed that he had previously been convicted of animal welfare offences and drink-driving.
In the 2023 parliamentary election, Näkkäläjärvi was the SDP candidate in the Lapland constituency. He received 3,853 votes, which was enough for a seat as a deputy member of parliament. He was elected as the Party Secretary of the SDP in September 2023.
Personal life
Näkkäläjärvi is originally from Inari and lives in
Rovaniemi
Rovaniemi ( , ; ; ; ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Lapland (Finland), Lapland. It is located near the Arctic Circle in the northern interior of the country. The population of Rovaniemi is approximately , while the Rovaniemi su ...
with his wife and two children. He has a master's degree in Administrative Sciences from the
University of Lapland
The University of Lapland ( Finnish: ''Lapin yliopisto'', Swedish: ''Lapplands universitet'') is a public university in Rovaniemi, Finland. It was established in 1979 and is the northernmost university in the European Union.
Around 4,000 und ...
. He previously studied mechanical and production engineering in