Jonathan Motzfeldt
| Jonathan Motzfeldt | |
|---|---|
 |
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| 1st Prime Minister of Greenland | |
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In office 19 September 1997 – 14 December 2002 |
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| Monarch | Margrethe II |
| Preceded by | Lars Emil Johansen |
| Succeeded by | Hans Enoksen |
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In office 1 May 1979 – 18 March 1991 |
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| Monarch | Margrethe II |
| Preceded by | Position Established |
| Succeeded by | Lars Emil Johansen |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 25 September 1938 Qassimiut |
| Died | 28 October 2010 (aged 72) |
| Political party | Siumut |
| Spouse(s) | Kristjana Gudrun Gudmundsdottir |
Jonathan Jakob Jørgen Otto Motzfeldt (25 September 1938 – 28 October 2010) was a Greenlandic priest and politician. He is considered one of the leading figures in the establishment of Greenland Home Rule. Jonathan Motzfeldt was the first and third Prime Minister of Greenland.
Jonathan "Junnuk" Motzfeldt was born in 1938 in the settlement of Qassimiut in southern Greenland as son to the hunter Søren Motzfeldt (1902-1984) and his wife Kirsten Klemmensen (1904-1979).
After his teacher's exam at Ilinniarfissuaq (Greenland College) in Nuuk in 1960, he studied theology at the University of Copenhagen until 1966, subsequently working as a pastor in Qaqortoq, Greenland until 1979.
In 1992, Jonathan Motzfeldt married Kristjana Guðrún Guðmundsdóttir (born 1951) from Iceland. They had no children. However, from a previous partnership with Margit Kock Petersen, he had two children: Karen Motzfeldt (born 1966) and Claus Motzfeldt (born 1969). Greenlandic handball player Hans Peter Motzfeldt-Kyed is Motzfeldt's nephew.
Already in the mid-1950s, Jonathan Motzfeldt started his battle for Greenland's autonomy with a group of young Inuit activists. In the early 1970s Motzfeldt became involved in the social democratic independence movement Siumut. After having placed himself at the forefront of the political emancipation process that Greenland's population began in earnest in the early 1970s, Motzfeldt became synonymous with the Greenland Home Rule. In the same manner as he stepped forward borne on the shoulders of the true pioneers of the independence movement, he secured almost absolute power through a series of spectacular and often quite brutal political cleansing processes. In these purges old comrades like Lars Emil Johansen, Moses Olsen, Lars Chemnitz and Emil Abelsen were pushed into the political sidelines.
In 1977 he was elected Chairman of Siumut party for the first time. In addition, he served as Chairman of the Greenland Landsting from 1979 to 1988, in 1997 and from 2003 to 2008.
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