Leila Ali Elmi has made history as the first East African, Muslim woman and Somali to be voted into the Riksdag (as the Swedish parliament is referred).
Face2Face Africa reports that Ms. Elmi ran on a Green Party ticket, representing the Angered District in Gothenburg. Ms. Elmi left Somalia in the 1990s, and has since been living in Sweden’s second largest city (where more than 14,000 Somalis also reside). During the election, many considered Ms. Elmi an underdog but her political team worked hard connecting her with constituents on the grassroot level.
Ms. Elmi says as MP she will prioritize education. “I come from a suburb and grew up in a suburb, the issue that matters to me is school policy, in the socioeconomically deprived areas it’s pretty bad schools, we have to focus on the school and that’s the [issue] I especially [want to tackle] when I enter the Riksdag.”
