Petteri Orpo, the leader of Finland’s conservative party, has won a tense race in the parliamentary elections, and his party has won the most mandates, the BBC writes.
The leader of the National Coalition Party won 20.8% of the vote, leaving behind the populist, right-oriented Finnish Party and the center-left forces. Populists won 20.8% of the vote, while the party of current Prime Minister Sanna Marin won 19.9% of voters’ support.
According to public opinion polls, the prime minister continues to enjoy wide support and is praised for steering Finland towards NATO and successfully guiding the country through the Covid-19 pandemic. Marina told supporters that she congratulated the winner and added that democracy had spoken.
For months, all three parties have shown almost identical results in the polls, and
the results of the election does not differ much from the predictions.
Finland’s party leader Riikka Purra congratulated her centre-right rivals and was pleased with the election results, the best in her party’s history. Analysts have highlighted the party’s appeal to the younger generation of voters because of its extensive use of social networks such as TikTok.
Marina became the world’s youngest leader when she became prime minister in 2019 at the age of 33 and led five coalition parties. The Prime Minister’s ability to respond appropriately to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was important, but
the decisive points in this election were the country’s economy and debts;
joining NATO is supported by all major parties.
Orpo has none of Marina’s rock star qualities. Public media YLE political journalist Matti Koivisto said: «He’s a career politician. He’s been in the game since the 1990s and he’s quite stable and calm. There is criticism that maybe he’s too dull and calm, but it also works quite well in Finland.»
This will be the conservatives’ first chance to form a government,
and if they manage to form a coalition, Orpo will become the next prime minister. Vesa Vares, a professor at the University of Turku, pointed out that less Orpo is less exciting than Marina, and very moderate.
Finland’s proportional representation system means that Orpo will need to fill more than 100 seats in the 200-member parliament in order to lead the country, and it won’t be easy. He has two options: to form a coalition with the Finnish party, or to try to reach an agreement with Marin’s social democrats. Vares explained that the Finnish party is a difficult partner due to lack of experience and there are members in the party who are always unsatisfied, and it would be most natural to form a coalition with the social democrats.
Political researcher Jenni Karimaki pointed out that the feelings of the social democrats are currently contradictory. Although the party managed to gain more seats in the parliament, it was unable to win an outright victory and secure further leadership. The researcher noted that the Finnish political culture is nevertheless very flexible and famous for its ability to debate and reach compromises.
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