The Finns have elected a new parliament: according to one extrapolation, the conservatives are ahead. The party of Prime Minister Sanna Marin, on the other hand, is currently only in third place.
According to a projection, the conservative National Coalition Party is just ahead in the hard-fought parliamentary elections in Finland. The party of former finance minister Petteri Orpo got 48 of the 200 mandates in the extrapolation of the radio station Yle on Sunday evening. The right-wing populist party The Finns had 46 mandates, the Social Democrats of Prime Minister Sanna Marin 43. At the time, almost 70 percent of the votes had been counted.
A first electoral trend immediately after the polling stations closed, Orpo’s Conservatives and Marin’s Social Democrats had seen almost on par. The right-wing populists around their party leader Riikka Purra followed at a smaller distance at the time.
A preliminary final result should be available around midnight on Monday night. The leader of the party with the most votes traditionally gets the first chance to form a new government in Finland.
Head-to-head race like in 2019
A neck-and-neck race between Marin’s Social Democrats, Orpo’s conservative National Coalition Party and Purra’s right-wing populist party The Finns had been announced. Polls put the three close together ahead of election Sunday, with the Conservatives marginally ahead. In the last parliamentary election in 2019, the three parties were separated by less than one percentage point.
The Social Democrats narrowly won the election under Marin’s predecessor, Antti Rinne. Rinne resigned after just under half a year in office in a dispute with the most important coalition partner, the Center Party. Marin became his successor at the end of 2019.
The conservatives are led by the experienced leader of the opposition, Petteri Orpo – the 53-year-old used to be Finland’s finance minister, among other things, and put economic issues at the center of his election campaign. Riikka Purra has been the leader of the right-wing populist, national-conservative Finns party since 2021. Purra’s most important topic is a strict immigration policy, and EU skepticism and a softening of Finland’s climate goals resonate again and again.
Difficult coalition negotiations expected
This time long and tough coalition negotiations are expected. Several parties have ruled out cooperation with the right-wing populists, including Marin. For a majority, the winner of the election is likely to depend on one other of the large parties and at least one of the medium-sized and smaller parties.
In May 2022, under the impression of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, Finland had applied for NATO membership together with Sweden. With Turkey, the last of the 30 NATO countries has now also ratified Finland’s accession. In the next few days, Finland is to officially become the 31st member of the defense alliance. However, joining NATO played no role in the election campaign. Instead, the main focus was on domestic issues such as the state budget.
