The result of the Finnish parliamentary election signals a tumultuous period ahead. This was anticipated to a certain extent by surveys before the election, which showed that the Prime Minister True Marines The Social Democratic Party (SDP) was about to lose to the conservative opposition party Coalition Party (Kok), led by Petteri Orpo.
The final election results showed a significant shift to the right – and increased success for right-wing populists in particular. The next government will therefore likely be a coalition of right-wing parties, but difficult negotiations await.
Marin received a very large number of personal votes and her party actually increased its vote share and parliamentary seats, but it was not enough to compensate for the significant losses suffered by her coalition partners.
Among these parties, only the social liberal Swedish People’s Party in Finland (RKP/SFP) maintained its position. The The Left Alliance (Vas) and the Green League (Vihr) both lost ground. There are indications that among the supporters of these parties, some chose to vote tactically for the SDP in a failed attempt to preserve Marin’s hold on the premiership.
At the same time, the most significant losses were suffered by the agrarian liberal Center Party (Kesk), which has now lost its status as one of Finland’s three largest political parties.
Kesk appears to have been replaced by the right-wing populist Finns Party (PS) in its home turf (namely the northernmost regions of the country, such as the constituencies of Lapland, Oulu and Savonia-Karelian).
PS won seven seats and now has 46 MPs, making it the second largest party in the new parliament. This indicates a sharp rightward shift among voters in both medium-sized cities and rural communities, as well as in the more ethnically homogeneous Finnish regions of the north, where PS became the largest party. The PS has a new female leader, Riikka Purra, who seems keen to push even further the radical agenda set by her predecessor Jussi Halla-aho. Purra proved to have considerable personal popularity in this election.
The remaining seats are divided between the conservative Christian Democrats (KD) (5 MPs), the economically liberal one-man show Movement Now (Liike Nyt) (1 MP), and the representative of the self-governing Åland (1 MP, usually affiliated). RKP/SFP’s parliamentary group because of their common Swedish language).
Not all bad news for women in politics
While Finland has lost Marin as Prime Minister, from a gender perspective, the results of these elections nevertheless cement the position of several female party leaders. Marin and Purra are the most prominent but seven out of nine parties in parliament are now led by women. Even among the future members of parliament, the gender distribution is fairly balanced, with 46% women and 54% men.
Marin was a trailblazer on the international scene as a young and charismatic woman leading the Finnish government and she secured a very good result for her party. But this was not enough to support her coalition.
The Navy demonstrated clear leadership during the covid-19 pandemic and the ongoing economic recession caused by the war in Ukraine. However, it appears that the policies that Marin and the SDP had identified to balance stimulating economic growth and public spending in education, social services, with preparation for a green transition did not gain enough traction among the Finnish electorate to guarantee her continued premiership.
Coalition talks ahead
Kok and Orpo’s winning streak appears to have come after promises to introduce economic restraint while expanding nuclear power. PS and Purra, meanwhile, ran on a platform that literally promised “Save Finland!” from alleged uncontrolled migration, EU interference and the Finnish government’s overspending on welfare.
As leader of the largest party in the upcoming Riksdag, Orpo now has the task of negotiating a stable government coalition. Ideally, he must gather support from more than half of Finland’s 200 members of the Riksdag to ensure this stability. The negotiations going forward will not be easy, as any potential coalition with the right-wing populist PS makes for a very hard sell to the centre-right parties.
So even when the election is over, it remains to be seen whether Finnish politics is about to transition from being an international source of inspiration to being governed according to a right-wing populist isolationist ideology.
Author: Ov Cristian Norocel – Docent & senior lecturer, Department of Gender Studies, Lund University
Source: sn.dk