Center-right wins elections in Finland and ousts Prime Minister | world

The center-right won Finland’s general election on Sunday (2) and will replace the Social Democrats led by outgoing Prime Minister, Sanna Marin, after a very close vote.

In the elections, the ultra-nationalists also beat the ruling party and achieved a record result that could give them a vote in the next government.

“It’s a great victory,” Petteri Orbo, 53, a former minister and leader of the election-winning National Coalition, celebrated before applause from his supporters.

“We will start negotiations to form a government in Finland,” added Urbu, who has the option of forming a left-wing alliance with Marin’s Social Democratic Party (SDP) or anti-immigration Rikka Pura’s party of European Finns.

According to the semi-final results, after counting 98% of the vote, the center-right party took first place with 48 out of 200 seats in parliament, ahead of the Finns’ Party, which won 46 seats, and the Social Democrats, who won 43.

Despite excelling in 2019 and being, according to opinion polls, Finland’s most popular female prime minister of the century, Marin has failed to secure enough seats in parliament to retain leadership of the government.

The prime minister, who became the world’s youngest head of government when she was elected at the age of 34, conceded defeat on Sunday. “Congratulations to the election winner, congratulations to the National Coalition, congratulations to the Finnish Party, Democracy has spoken.”

“It made us proud. Before, people would make fun of us, we were considered an old-school party,” said Mo Schimer, a 26-year-old SDP activist.

The turnout for Sunday’s elections was 71.9%, similar to the previous elections in 2019.

Traditionally, the formation with the most support among the eight major parties in parliament has tended to claim the post of prime minister and try to form a government. Since the 1990s, this party has always held the premiership.

The difference between the three parties was small: 20.8% for the centre-right, 20.1% for the far-right and 19.9% ​​for the Marin SDP.

Far-right leader Rikka Bira celebrated in front of her supporters the “best election result” in the history of the nationalist party, after being greeted with chants of “Finland! Finland!”.

For more than 20 years in Finnish political life, the far-right broke its own record in 2011, when it received 19.05% of the vote.

Thus Finland, with a population of 5.5 million, could join the wave of nationalism sweeping Europe, following the rise of conservatives to power in neighboring Sweden and the victory of the far right in Italy.

With a clear path to becoming the new prime minister following Sunday’s election victory, Petteri Urbu is a firm supporter of budget toughness, which has become his number one priority.

In Finland which is already an unofficial member of the “frugal” club of budget-tight EU countries, Urbo’s rise to power could spark some sparks with other partners in Brussels as they break public spending models.

Forming a government usually takes several weeks or even months. Thus, Marin will remain prime minister on an interim basis next week, when Finland officially joins NATO.

The election changes nothing from the point of view of the military alliance: all major parties, including the ultra-nationalists, have been in favor of joining since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.