SONJA BRAHMS

Sonja Brahms (born 14 May 1942 in Dún Laoghaire, Ireland) is a former Kronenburg politician. From 2001 to 2007 she was the country's fourth (and first woman) prime minister. From 2001 to 2006 she led a coalition government consisting of LKP, PvG and DPG, and from 2006 to 2007 a government consisting of LKP, PvG and NCD.

Childhood
Sonja Brahms was born in the Irish town of Dún Laoghaire, the temporary residence of the Brahms family during the American occupation of Kronenburg following the national-socialist coup d'état of 1938. She spent her childhood in Ireland, from 1944 on together with her younger brother Werner Johann Brahms. Her parents, Karl Johann Brahms (1913 - 2010) and Eleonore Brahms-Wittgenstein (1916 - 1987) had fled from the nazi-regime in Germany in the thirties. Karl Brahms was a communist, although moderate, and the family hoped to have a brighter future across the ocean. In 1939 they moved to Denestad and Karl Brahms became a member of the (at that moment underground) Communist Front of Kronenburg (CFK). In 1941, already before the American invasion, Karl Brahms and his wife fled to Ireland; they returned to Kronenburg in 1947.

Education, first career, marriage and family
From 1960 to 1966 Sonja Brahms studied history and politicology at the Royal University in Alexanderstad. In that period she became an active member of the liberal party, LKP, much to the dismay of her father, who was minister of foreign affairs in an all CFK government. After getting her degree, she first became a history teacher. In 1969 however she became a city councillor of Alexanderstad. On 24 July 1973, she married Harmen Dekker (1940 - 1974). The couple moved to South-Africa, where there son Johannes was born in Pietermaritzburg on 4 January 1974. Later that year Harmen Dekker died, and Sonja Brahms and her son returned to Kronenburg, settling in Friescheburg.

Second career
In 1976 she returned to Kronenburg politics, first becoming party secretary of the LKP and from 1977 to 1985 chairwoman of the LKP in parliament. When in 1985 the LKP got to govern for the first time since 1965, she became minister of social affairs, first in the second government of Nicolaas Veldtman and after that in the three governments of Sander Opland Falting. In 2001 the LKP spent  a short while in the opposition. Sonja Brahms succeeded Fokko Korte van Eeghen as party leader. After the 2001 elections the LKP got into another governing coalition and Sonja Brahms became the first female prime minister of Kronenburg.

Prime minister
Sonja Brahms's governments were marred by a relatively large amount of scandals. The most important one of her first government was the situation around the AGL Secretary General Marij Ühler, who turned out to be a leftist agitator who abused her office amongst other to assist Miisan rebels. She stepped down in 2003, but not before she had made the reputation of Kronenburg within the AGL very awkward. The second scandal occurred in early 2004, when the entire DPG pulled out of the coalition, leaving the LKP and PvG with just enough seats to continue governing. The reason the DPG quit as coalition partner was the alledged censorship imposed by the government on the controversial opera by composer Johannes Dekker 'Bush in Bagdad' about the US and British war in Iraq. The government had stopped the opera from being performed, which the DPG found absolutely intolerable. The opera was performed anyway, but not as prominent as the composer had hoped.

The second government of Sonja Brahms came to an early end due to the beginning of the economic crisis in 2007. Sonja Brahms was succeeded as prime minister by Annemarie Torringa-Haraldson (LKP, acting) and after that by Ernst-Piter Strikwerda (PSV). Annemarie Torringa also succeeded Brahms as party leader of the LKP.