Magdalene Klassen (born 19 October 1967) is a Brunanter politician for A Better Brunant, previously with the Green Party. She was Minister of Transport and Communications in the second Michels government from 2004-2005 and Minister of Industry and Agriculture in the Helms government from 2009-2013. She has been a member of the Congress since 1998, serving as a representative and a senator. She was chairwoman of the Green Party from 2004-2008.
Biography[]
Personal life[]
Klassen was born to Brunanter immigrants in Hurbanova, Lovia. She went to the King Arthur II School and the King Arthur I College. She worked at a department store before moving to Brunant in 1982. In 1992, she married Joseph Stenman and they have two children, Martha (born 1993) and Joseph Jr. (born 1996).
Political career[]
An environmental and social lawyer in the early 1990s, Klassen was a founding member of the Green Party in 1995 and has proven influential in its growth and importance. She was a spokeswoman until 1998, when she was first elected to the House of Representatives. She was re-elected in 2004.
For a period of one year from mid-2004 until mid-2005, Klassen served as Minister of Transport and Communications in the second Michels government following the resignation of fellow party member Dirk Stenman upon his election as a member of the European Parliament. She also replaced Stenman as Green Party leader. She was re-elected as a representative in 2005, but the Green Party fell out of the government coalition for four years. In 2008, Peter Wostor succeeded her as party leader.
Klassen was a senator between 2009 and 2013, representing Sint-Anders Parish. She was appointed the Minister of Industry and Agriculture in the Helms government and the Wostor I government from 2009-2013. As a minister, she has banned all cigarette manufacturing in the country following a ten year push started by former President Marta Henneman and Ines Michels. Klassen and Sofia Andersen have an intense rivalry, at least according to the media, but in recent years, both have downplayed it. Since 2013, Klassen has been a member of the House of Representatives again.
As soon as the 2017 Green Party corruption scandal broke out, Klassen immediately moved to distance herself from Peter Wostor and the supposedly involved politicians. She was one of the first in the party to demand Wostor resign, and on 18 March left the party to join A Better Brunant, becoming the most senior defection from the party. Following the 2017 general election, Klassen was elected as ABB's third representative. She was then house leader from April 2017-September 2018. She was re-elected to the House in 2019.