Traditionally speaking, when you say the word “politician” people think of a rich, old, white man. However, this is changing more and more. This got me thinking, who are the youngest politicians in the world?
For the purposes of this article only, I am only including politicians that have been elected into office. To qualify, the politician in question must still be serving in office as of the time of writing.
Whilst there have been younger politicians than some of them in the past (eg. late 1800’s, early 1900’s), they currently aren’t in office. This includes former congressmen Henry Clay and Armistead Thomson Mason.
15. Sanna Marin (November 1985)
Sanna Marin is well known around the world for her role as the current Prime Minister of Finland. However, when she was elected to do so, at only 34, she was the youngest Finnish person ever elected to do so!
At 20 years old, Marin left school (in Finland, they graduate later) and joined the Social Democratic Party’s youth wing. In 2012, at 27, Marin ran for County Council in Tampere, but lost the election.
A year later, Marin had secured backing by the Social Democrats to become a chairperson of the local council, with her being re-elected to do so in 2017. In 2015, she had been elected as an MP from the Pirkanmaa constituency.
In December 2019, Antti Rinne stepped down as Prime Minister of Finland, creating a power vacuum. Sanna was elected by her fellow party members to become Prime Minister. This made her the youngest Finnish Prime Minister ever.
When Rinne stepped down as the head of the SDP in August 2020, Sanna was elected to fill his place in the party once again. In her time as PM, she has implemented many socially liberal policies.
14. Mark Okoye (June 1986)
Whilst mostly unknown outside of his home country, many people in Nigeria are very familiar with Mark Okoye. In 2016, Okoye made history for being one of the youngest politicians in the world.
Okoye comes from a politically strong family, with his father having been a beloved politician in his own right. In the 2016 election, Okoye was elected to represent the Anambra State in South East Nigeria.
Here, local governor Willie Obiano made him Commissioner for Economic Planning, Budget and Development Partners within his administration. This made him famous in Nigeria for many reasons.
Many national newspapers interviewed him as he was the youngest person ever named commissioner in Nigerian history. This fact also made him one of the youngest politicians in the world.
13. Luigi Di Maio (July 1986)
Luigi Di Maio is one of Italy’s most controversial, yet respected politicians. For many in Italy, and especially in his constituency of Acerra, they can look past his somewhat controversial past because he is one of the youngest politicians in Italy.
Mostly, his controversy comes from him misdescribing a past job to make it seem like he did another job, which many mistook as him lying. As well as him having been sued for defamation by some of his fellow party members.
At 21 years old, Di Maio, alongside many other likeminded people, founded a political group known as the “Friends of Beppe Grillo”. This group wanted conservative comedian Beppe Grillo to enter the world of politics for real.
This caused Beppe Grillo to found the Five Star Movement, which they all joined. In 2018, DiMaio was elected into office and became the Deputy Prime Minister.
In 2019, several Italian ministers resigned from their positions and Di Maio was made Italy’s Foreign Minister. Although, he has since resigned from this position.
12. Sebastian Kurz (August 1986)
As of the time of writing, Sebastian Kurz is the youngest world leader, a title previously held by the aforementioned Sanna Marin. As well as this, he is also the youngest Austrian politician in history.
Despite his age, Kurz has been a force in Austrian politics for the last 10 years, having previously served in the Austrian Army. For the last ten years, Kurz has been a principle member of the People’s Party within Austria.
Kurz’s first political position was in 2008, for the chairmanship Youth wing of the People’s Party in his home town of Vienna. Upon doing this for two years, Kurz was elected into the Landtag and soon became state secretary for social integration.
During the 2013 General Election Kurz was able to keep his seat within the Landtag and become Foreign Minister, doing so until 2017. In 2017, the chancellor of Austria resigned and named Kurz as his successor. He began chancellor soon after.
11. Abby Finkenauer (December 1988)
In 2018, Abby Finkenauer made headlines as she became the second youngest female congresswoman in history. This also made her among the youngest politicians ever elected.
As a teenager, Finkenauer was extremely politically active, for both of the tow major US parties. At 16, she was a page to her local Congressman, Republican Jim Nussle.
At 17, she began working properly in the Democratic Party. Here, she was a volunteer for Joe Biden’s 2008 Presidential Campaign. Once Biden ran on the Obama ticket, Finkenauer began working with Iowa Democrat Todd Taylor.
In 2014, legendary Iowa Democrat Pat Murphy left his seat in the Iowa House of Representatives. Finkenauer was chosen as his replacement and won the election. This inspired her to run for Congress in the 2018 Midterms.
10. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (October 1989)
In 2018, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made headlines alongside Abby Finkenauer for being among the youngest politicians ever elected. However, AOC as she’s known, made even more headlines.
This was for the several reasons. For some, it that she was so young. For others, it was the fact she had no real experience beforehand, having only ever been a waitress and a bartender before Congress.
For many others, it was the fact that she managed to defeat Joe Crowley for the Democratic nomination for New York’s 14th congressional district. Then, she defeated Republican Anthony Pappas to become the youngest congresswoman ever.
During her tenure as a congresswoman has seen her rail against corporations and has helped to popularize anti-corporate and anti-corporatocracy sentiments in the US, and all across the world.
9. Nagua Alba (March 1990)
For most people outside of Spain, they have never heard of Nagua Alba. In Spain, however, she is somewhat of a legend, with her only very recently loosing her seat in the Cortes Generales (Spanish Parliament).
Alba was relatively unknown in Spain until the 2015 General Election. Here, she represented the Basque region of Gipuzkoa for the Spanish Podemos Party. Alba herslef, has several famous Basque and Spanish relatives.
When she was elected to the Cortes, she was the youngest person ever elected to the Cortes, in any of Spain’s various incarnations. As well as being Spain’s youngest minister, she was also one of the youngest politicians in the world.
In the June 2016 election, Alba successfully managed to defend her seat. However, in the 2019 election, Alba said that she would not stand for re-election, instead endorsing close friend Lander MartÃnez for the role.
8. Edison Broce (November 1990)
For the vast majority of these young politicians, they are a part of an established political party. It just makes things easier. For Edison Broce, it’s too much bureaucracy and doesn’t help him help his constituents.
Originally starting his career as a lawyer in Panama, Broce soon discovered that he couldn’t help everyone. As such, he began working to be elected as a member of parliament in the National Assembly of Panama in 2019.
He ran mostly on an eco-friendly campaign, which many people agreed with. As such, he was voted in, in 2019, and has worked tirelessly to make the laws his campaign was based on, and what his constituents voted on.
In his brief time as an MP, he has been responsible for some of Panama’s first recycling laws. He has also considerably cut Panama’s carbon footprint, and is several years ahead of his original plan.
7. Syed Saddiq (December 1992)
Syed Saddiq was first elected to the Malaysian Parliament in May 2018. Here, he represented Muar for the BERSATU (Malaysian United Indigenous Party) Party as a part of the Pakatan Harapan coalition government.
Prior to becoming a Member of Parliament, Syed was a political activist, mostly looking to lower the legal voting age from 21 to 18 in Malaysia. Upon being elected, Syed continued to push this.
As a result, Syed was made the Minister of Youth and Sport by then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. This gave him the resources and clout to push this through, although he later withdrew it to alter it.
Due to political instability in Malaysia, Syed was expelled from BERSATU. As such, he became an independent, before co-founding a political party of his own only very recently, having done so in September 2020.
6. Typhanie Degois (January 1993)
In 2017, Typhanie Degois made French history, becoming the youngest woman to become a member of the National Assembly, and one of the youngest politicians in the world.
Originally, in 2013, Typhanie had joined the center-right Union of Democrats and Independents. However, in 2014, there was a schism in the party, and Typhanie (and many other members) left.
In April 2016, Emmanuel Macron was running for the presidency of France. However, he was struggling to secure the nomination from the two major parties. As such, he founded his own party, La République En Marche!
As with many other former UDI members, Typhanie joined LREM. She quickly secured the party nomination to represent the Savoie department (state) of France in the National Assembly before winning in the election.
5. Mhairi Black (September 1994)
Mhairi Black made headlines during the 2015 General Election for a number of reasons. For starters, she managed to defeat Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander, against all odds.
This was compounded by the fact that Mhairi was still enrolled in her Politics and Public Policy degree at the University of Glasgow. She was also the youngest candidate of the election, at just under 21 years old.
When she took her seat in the House of Commons, doing so for the Scottish National Party (SNP), she was only 20 years and 237 days old. This made her the youngest UK Member of Parliament in history!
Up until very recently, Mhairi was considered the Baby of the House, an unofficial title used to describe the youngest person sat in the House of Commons. Mhairi has successfully defended her seat in two subsequent general elections.
4. Jordon Steele-John (October 1994)
Whilst Mhairi Black may have been Britain’s youngest MP, her Australian counterpart is British-born Jordon Steele-John. As with Mhairi Black, Jordon has made headlines in Australia for several reasons, both due to his age and his politics.
Jordon Steele-John is currently the only physically disabled Australian senator, and is one of only a handful of disabled politicians all around the world. Using his position, he has become very well known for his disabilities rights activism.
He first came onto the scene in 2017, representing the Australian Green Party. Here, he was made a senator for Western Australia when disgraced senator Scott Ludlam was forced to give up his seat.
During the 2019 Federal Election, Jordon ran again in his local constituency. Against all odds, he was able to successfully defend his seat. This has allowed him to push through bills such as lowering the legal age to vote, although, many have been rejected.
3. Ebba Hermansson (May 1996)
Ebba Hermansson is well known around the world for being one of the youngest politicians in office, having become the Baby of the House in the Swedish Riksdag in September 2018.
Prior to the 2018 election, Ebba joined the fringe Sweden Democrat Party. In the election, she was chosen as the challenger to the parliamentary seat of Skåne County West. Here, she became one of two people from her party elected to the Riksdag.
Her tenure in the Riksdag has been marked with her supporting fiscally and socially conservative policies. Using her age, Ebba has been able to draw many supporters away from the Moderate and Christian Democratic Parties.
This has been through helping to write legislation that is written in such a way that it seems like it helps both the young and the old. This has attracted many former party members from either party to join them.
2. Nadia Whittome (August 1996)
During the 2019 UK General Election, then-23 year old Nadia Whittome was elected as Labour’s candidate for the Nottingham East constituency here, she stood against Victoria Stapleton (Conservative) and Robert Swift (Lib Dems).
As a strong Labour swing state, Nadia was elected into the Houses of Parliament for Nottingham East, even despite Labour’s disastrous defeat in the election as a whole.
When she took her seat at the opening on Parliament, she officially became the “Baby of the House”. This unofficial title is used to describe the youngest Member of Parliament.
As an MP, Nadia has become a member of the Socialist Campaign Group, a group of Labour MPs. She has made headlines on several occasions for going against both the Labour and Conservative Parties
1. Caleb Hanna (October 1999)
Nadia Whittome may be the youngest politician in the UK, but the US similarly has a “Baby of the House”. This is Caleb Hanna, to date, the youngest politician in the world.
During the 2018 Midterm Elections, Hanna, a full time West Virginia State University student, ran for office. Here, he ran to represent West Virginia’s District 44 in the West Virginia House of Delegates.
Here, he faced off against Democrat, Dana Lynch. On November 6th, Hanna defeated Lynch and was sworn into the West Virginia House of Delegates, becoming the youngest African American elected to state office.
With this, he also became the youngest active politician in the world. He is the youngest Republican to have ever been elected, and despite holding public office, Hanna continues to attend WVSU full time.
Which of the youngest politicians are your favorite? Tell me in the comments!