“This was a great victory,” the leader of the conservative National Coalition Party, Petteri Orpo, exulted to his supporters. “On the basis of this election result… we will negotiate a government in Finland,” said the face of Finland’s centre-right, dethroning the world’s youngest prime minister, Sanna Marin, who had been relegated to third place. place in the mood.
Orpo could choose to form a government with Finland’s far-right party or Marin’s Social Democrats, though he disagrees with both on several counts.
With 99% of the votes counted, the centre-right won 48 of the 200 seats in parliament, the extreme right 46 and the social democrats 43.
In terms of votes, the result was even closer, with the center right at 20.6 percent, the far right at 20.1 percent and the social democrats at 19.9 percent.
The largest party in parliament traditionally gets the first chance to build a government, and since the 1990s that party has always appointed the prime minister.
Orpo, whose comfortable lead in the polls had shrunk towards the end of the campaign, made the economy his top priority. Finland’s debt-to-GDP ratio rose from 64% in 2019 to 73%, which the National Coalition Party (KOK) wants to solve by cutting spending by six billion euros.
Meanwhile, Riikka Purra, head of the anti-immigrant Finns Party, to applause and chants of “Finland! Finland!”, thanked his supporters for the far-right party’s “best election result ever”.
The party, which first entered government in 2015, has seen its support soar since last summer’s cost-of-living crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Eurosceptic Finns Party, which attracts predominantly male voters, wants a hard line against immigration.
Purra claims immigrants are behind the rise of street gangs and pointed to neighboring Sweden as a wake-up call. The Finnish party sees “Fixit” – an exit from the European Union – as a long-term goal and wants to postpone Finland’s carbon neutrality target until 2035.
Difficult conversations ahead
Marin, who became the world’s youngest female prime minister at age 34 in 2019, has struggled to convert her massive personal popularity into support for her SDP. Tonight she had to admit defeat. “Congratulations to the National Coalition Party, congratulations to the Finnish Party. Democracy has spoken,” he said.
Now negotiations to form a government are likely to be thorny and could take several weeks. Orpo said he would keep his options open and could work with both the left and the far right, which current Prime Minister Marin called “openly racist”.
Orpo’s National Coalition is at odds with Marin’s SDP over austerity and clashes with the Finnish Party over immigration, EU and climate policy.
“The days of the rock stars are over”
Sanna Marin made international headlines for her crackdown on neighboring Russia. She has been a frequent speaker at the World Economic Forum in Davos in recent years and has appeared on the cover of Time magazine and Vogue.
However, while some see her as a strong leader who deftly navigated the Covid-19 pandemic and the NATO membership process, others point to the rising government debt under her command and the backlash to controversy over her private party videos as signs of inexperience.
“I liked Marin…but personally I don’t believe her economic policy ideas are anything she and her government can really achieve,” told AFP Kasper Kylmala, 29, after voting this Sunday.
Antti Piispanen, a 30-year-old salesman, was more blunt: “Rock star Marin’s time is up, she has done no good.”
Source: DN
