Kuupik Vandersee Kleist
Kleist in 2008
4th Prime Minister of Greenland
In office 12 June 2009 – 5 April 2013
Monarch	Margrethe II
Preceded by	Hans Enoksen
Succeeded by	Aleqa Hammond
Chairman of the OCT for Greenland
In office 23 January 2012 – 25 September 2012
Deputy	Jens B. Frederiksen
Leader of the Inuit Ataqatigiit
In office 10 June 2007 – 31 March 2014
Deputy	Aqqaluaq B. Egede
Preceded by	Josef Motzfeldt
Succeeded by	Sara Olsvig
Member of the Greenlandic Parliament
Incumbent
Assumed office 8 February 2002
Member of the Danish Parliament
In office 20 November 2001 – 13 November 2007
Member of the Greenlandic Parliament
In office 1995–1996
Minister of Public Works and Transport
In office 1991–1995
Prime Minister	Lars Emil Johansen
Personal details
Born	Jakob Edvard Kuupik Kleist (1958-03-31) 31 March 1958 (age 65) Qullissat, County of Greenland, Denmark
Citizenship	Kingdom of Denmark
Nationality	Greenlandic
Political party	Inuit Ataqatigiit
Spouse	Aviaaja Vandersee ​ (m. 2012)​
Children	5
Alma mater	University of Roskilde
Website	ia.gl/kuupik-kleist

Jakob Edvard Kuupik Kleist (born 31 March 1958) is a Greenlandic politician who served as the fourth prime minister of Greenland between 2009 and 2013. A member of the Inuit Ataqatigiit party, he was the first Prime Minister not affiliated with Siumut.

Early life and career

Kleist was born on 31 March 1958 to a Danish telegraphist and a Greenlandic mother in Qullissat, and was raised by his aunt and uncle.^[1][2] He attended primary school in Qullissat from 1966 until 1972 when the mining town was abandoned and then he attended lower secondary school in Sisimiut until 1975. When he was 17, he was sent to Denmark, alone and with no prior knowledge of Danish.^[2] He attended the Birkerød State School in Denmark from 1975 to 1978.^{[citation needed]} Kleist graduated from Roskilde University in 1983 with a master's degree in social work (socionom).^{[citation needed]} He taught journalism in Nuuk from 1988 to 1991.^{[citation needed]}

Political career

In 1996, Kleist was appointed the Director of the Foreign Office of the Greenland Home Rule Government (Direktør for hjemmestyrets udenrigskontor). He was a Member of the Danish Parliament from 20 November 2001 to 13 November 2007, representing the Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) party. IA will be the first party to govern the autonomous Danish territory under an expanded home rule agreement known as "self-rule" (selvstyre). While the self-rule agreement has been referred to a step towards eventual full independence from Denmark, Kleist's administration was predicted to put "any push for independence [...] on the backburner", given his pledge to focus on social issues such as alcoholism, domestic violence and a high suicide rate.^[3]

Kleist had risen to power on an agenda that included cleaning up following government scandals.^[4]

Prime Minister

Since 2007, he has been the leader of IA, a leftist political party which works towards Greenland's eventual full autonomy from Denmark. The party received the most votes in the 2009 election. In June 2009 the Greenlandic parliament therefore elected Kleist the fifth Prime Minister of Greenland. Kleist also had a very successful election himself and won 5,461 personal votes compared to just 1,413 votes for incumbent Prime Minister Hans Enoksen.^[5][6]

In late August 2009 Kleist met with Admiral Tim Sloth Jørgensen and General Walter Natynczyk, the chiefs of defense staff for Denmark and Canada, respectively.^[7] Admiral Jørgensen and General Natynczyk were conducting a tour of Danish and Canadian military bases in the Arctic.

Other endeavors

Kleist had an acting role as the father of the titular character (played by Nukâka Coster-Waldau) in the 2018 film Anori.