HELSINKI, 3 Apr: Finnish voters have given a boost to conservative parties in a weekend election, depriving left-wing Prime Minister Sanna Marin of another term as the country prepares to make its historic entry into NATO on Tuesday.
\nMarin won popularity for her Cabinet\u2019s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and for her European Union nation\u2019s strong support for Ukraine following Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion last year. But Sunday\u2019s election was largely fought over economic issues, with voters in the nation of 5.5 million people shifting their allegiances significantly to parties on the political right as they seek solutions to rising state debt, inflation and other economic problems.
\nThe bloated debt will pose a challenge for the new government, particularly since NATO membership will require Finland to increase its defense spending. Finland is to join NATO on Tuesday after Turkey ratified its membership last week, lifting the last hurdle to membership for the Nordic nation that shares a long border with Russia.
\nThe center-right National Coalition Party, or NCP, won 20.8% of the vote, which is more than any other party and puts it in a position to try to form a government. The right-wing populist party The Finns won 20.1% and Marin\u2019s Social Democrats 19.9%.
\nJuhana Aunesluoma, a professor of political history at the University of Helsinki, noted that about one-third of the votes went to left-wing parties and two thirds to parties on the right.
\nIt was \u201ca big swing from left to right,\u201d he said in an interview Monday with The Associated Press.
\nMarin\u2019s defeat is the latest setback for the left amid a larger shift to conservative and nationalist parties across Europe in recent times. Sweden ousted its left-wing government in a rightward shift last year, followed by an election in Italy that resulted in the first far-right-led government since the end of World War II. Meanwhile Spain\u2019s left-wing government is under pressure, with the right-wing Popular Party and far-right Vox party ahead as the country heads to a vote in December.
\nThe winning party in Finland traditionally kicks off government formation talks, and National Coalition led by Petteri Orpo \u2014 a 53-year-old former finance minister \u2014 is expected to start negotiations next week with the goal of putting together a Cabinet enjoying a majority in the 200-seat parliament, the Eduskunta.
\nOrpo told the AP late Sunday that he intends to negotiate with all parties in order \u201cto find the best possible majority government for Finland.\u201d
\nIf Orpo, the most likely candidate to be the next prime minister, ends up choosing the Social Democrats as a coalition partner, that could mean Marin could theoret-ically get a post \u2014 albeit not the prime minister\u2019s job \u2014 in the next government.
\nStill, for now, a coalition with other conservatives appears to be the most likely outcome.
\nFinnish media touted the The Finns, which ran on an anti-immigration and anti-EU agenda, as the biggest winner of the election. The populists scored the best result of their history under the leadership of Riikka Purra, who took over the party only in 2021.
\nOrpo has said his party is open to cooperation with The Finns as the two parties largely share views on developing Finland\u2019s economy though have differences in climate policies and EU issues.
\nThe biggest losers of the election were small and mid-size parties, particularly the Green League and the Left-Alliance \u2014 both members of Marin\u2019s outgoing coalition Cabinet \u2014 which were left in the shadow of the big three.
\nAunesluoma noted that Marin\u2019s coalition partners, who shifted to the left during their years of alliance with the Social Democrats, lost votes.
\nWhile Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine prompted Finland to seek NATO membership in May 2022, neither the historic decision to abandon the nation\u2019s nonalignment policy nor the war emerged as major campaign issues, given broad consensus in society and among the parties. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HELSINKI, 3 Apr: Finnish voters have given a boost to conservative parties in a weekend election, depriving left-wing Prime Minister Sanna Marin of another term as the country prepares to make its historic entry into NATO on Tuesday. Marin won popularity for her Cabinet\u2019s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and for her European Union nation\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-214211","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}