Annette Vilhelmsen

Annette Vilhelmsen
Helle Thorning-Smidth, Anette Wilhelmsen, Holger K. Nielsen (2012)
Minister for Social Affairs and Integration
In office 9 August 2013 – 3 February 2014
Prime Minister	Helle Thorning-Schmidt
Preceded by	Karen Hækkerup
Succeeded by	Manu Sareen
Minister of Economic and Business Affairs
In office 16 October 2012 – 9 August 2013
Prime Minister	Helle Thorning-Schmidt
Preceded by	Ole Sohn
Succeeded by	Henrik Sass Larsen
Leader of the Socialist People's Party
In office 13 October 2012 – 13 February 2014
Preceded by	Villy Søvndal
Succeeded by	Pia Olsen Dyhr
Member of Parliament
In office 15 September 2011 – 18 June 2015
Personal details
Born	(1959-10-24) 24 October 1959 Svendborg, Denmark
Political party	Socialist People's Party
Spouse(s)	John Vilhelmsen

Annette Lilja Vilhelmsen (born 24 October 1959) is a Danish politician who was Minister for Social Affairs and Integration for a short period from medio 2013 to primo 2014 and who was Minister for Economic and Business Affairs from 2012 to 2013, both times in the Cabinet of Helle Thorning-Schmidt. She is a member of Parliament of Denmark and was the chairwoman of the Socialist People's Party (SF) from 2012 to 2014.

Political career

Born in Svendborg, she was educated as a teacher and had a long career in teaching combined with local politics before entering the national political scene when she was elected to Parliament in the 2011 elections. She became her party's spokeswoman for Business related issues.

In September 2012 she announced her candidacy for the post as head of the Socialist People's Party running against Astrid Krag after the previous leader Villy Søvndal stepped down. Vilhelmsen is said to represent the party's left wing. While most of the party leadership voiced their support for Krag and warned that Vilhelmsen's leftist line might endanger the stability of the government coalition, Vilhelmsen achieved considerable support in the general constituency of the party, and won the election with 66% of the vote.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

On 16 October 2012 she was named new Minister of Economic and Business Affairs succeeding Ole Sohn.^[6] She retracted from both her post as Minister and chairman of the party on January 30, 2014 following lack of support from the party grassroots in the high-profile case of selling part of Danish energy company DONG to American Goldman-Sachs.

References