Anna-Lena Ungerer
Anna-Lena Ungerer | |
|---|---|
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| Minister-President of Hanover | |
| Assumed office 20 November 2021 | |
| Monarch | Alexandra |
| Deputy | Ernst Haeberle |
| Preceded by | Markus Thierse |
| Leader of the Hanoverian Union Party | |
| Assumed office 20 November 2021 | |
| Deputy | Ernst Haeberle |
| Preceded by | Markus Thierse |
| Member of the Hanoverian Parliament for Osnabrück | |
| Assumed office 20 November 2014 | |
| Preceded by | Mira Hopfer |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Anna-Lena Christa Ungerer December 1, 1981 Braunschweig, Hanover |
| Political party | Hanoverian Union Party |
| Spouse | Stephan Pohl |
| Children | 3 |
Anna-Lena Christa Unger (born 1 December 1981) is a Hanoverian politician and journalist currently serving as the minister-president of Hanover and Leader of the Hanoverian Union Party since 2021. The second woman after Karlotta Brandt to hold the office, Unger assumed the position following the resignation of Markus Thierse in November 2021.
Born in Braunschweig, Unger, the eldest out of three siblings, first found work as an activist opposing the controversial US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq, which the United Kingdom under Prime Minister Tony Blair had participated in. Then, from 2007 to 2014, spurred by international events at the time, Unger served as a journalist for the independent news agency, Reuters, during which she became its editor-in-chief from 2011 to 2014, at which point she officially stepped down to pursue her political career. Then, in the 2014 Hanoverian Parliament elections, Unger was elected to the Hanoverian Parliament as an independent for Osnabrück, during which she quickly gained much fame for her outspokenness in parliament, and her fervent opposition against Russia, especially following its occupation of Crimea in 2014, a region that had previously been under Ukrainian sovereignty.
In November 2020, after a roughly six-year-long tenure as an independent politician, Unger, somewhat unexpectedly, joined the longtime dominant Hanoverian Union Party, and in the following leadership elections that year, successfully won the nomination to succeed party leader, Markus Thierse, whom eventually stepped down on 20 November 2021, and was afterwards succeeded by Unger, whom subsequently became the second woman to lead the party as well as the second woman to become minister-president of Hanover after Karlotta Brandt. In addition, at the age of forty, Unger is also the youngest person to ever hold both roles respectively.
As minister-president, in the tradition of her predecessors, Unger has largely pursued moderate to liberal policies. In the meantime, Unger also presided over the ongoing cost of living and energy supply crisis that followed the preceding COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, Unger has actively sponsored the use of nuclear energy for Hanover, mainly as an alternative to its dependence on oil, a portion of which had originated from Russia, and which Unger's government had sought to reduce its dependence on through the pursuit and sponsorship of alternative sources of energy.