Anna-Lena Ungerer
Anna-Lena Ungerer | |
|---|---|
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| Minister-President of Hanover | |
| Assumed office 20 November 2021 | |
| Monarch | Alexandra |
| Deputy | Denis Brahm |
| Preceded by | Mark Heffelfinger |
| Leader of the Hanoverian Union Party | |
| Assumed office 19 November 2021 | |
| Deputy | Denis Brahm |
| Preceded by | Mark Heffelfinger |
| Member of the Hanoverian Parliament for Osnabrück | |
| Assumed office 20 November 2014 | |
| Preceded by | Marike Kehlmann |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Anna-Lena Christa Ungerer December 1, 1981 Braunschweig, Hanover |
| Political party | Hanoverian Union Party |
| Spouse | Lennard Gegenbauer |
| Children | 3 |
| Parent(s) | Oli Ungerer Chiara Deutscher |
| Residence | State Chancellery |
| Alma mater | University of London |
Anna-Lena Christa Ungerer (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 Kerstin Tilgner to hold the office, Ungerer assumed the position following the resignation of Mark Heffelfinger in November 2021.
Born in Braunschweig, Ungerer, 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, Ungerer 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 a career in politics. Then, in the 2014 Hanoverian Parliament elections, Ungerer 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 addition, Ungerer also actively campaigned for the rights of same-sex individuals with her role in the passage of the Marriage Equality Act 2015 bringing her nationwide attention.
In November 2020, after a roughly six-year-long streak as an independent politician, Ungerer joined the longtime dominant Hanoverian Union Party, and in the following leadership elections that year, successfully won the nomination to succeed party leader Mark Heffelfinger who eventually stepped down on 20 November 2021, making her the second woman to both lead the party and become minister-president of Hanover after Kerstin Tilgner. In addition, at the age of forty, Ungerer is also the youngest person to ever hold both roles respectively, and is also the first party leader to have not been previously actively affiliated with the party prior to assuming the party leadership.
As minister-president, in the tradition of her predecessors, Ungerer has largely pursued moderate to liberal policies. Most importantly, Ungerer also presided over the ongoing cost of living and energy supply crisis that followed the preceding COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, Ungerer 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 Ungerer's government had sought to reduce its dependence on through the pursuit and sponsorship of alternative sources of energy.