by Enrico Oliari –
Perhaps the Finnish premier Sanna Marin hoped that the celebrations, well advertised in the national and Western media, for the Turkish “yes” to her country’s accession to NATO would have brought an avalanche of votes. More likely, the majority of Finns did not like the loss of the traditional “non-alignment”, that neutrality which has allowed up to now to share the 1,340 km border with Russia without problems, transformed into an iron curtain by the government of centre-left.
Thus the social democrat Sanna Marin was beaten in the general elections, coming third with 19.9% of the preferences, i.e. 43 seats in the Eduskunta, the Finnish Parliament. The winner was the centre-right of former Finance Minister Petteri Orpo (20.7%, 48 seats), but the extreme right of the True Finns of pasionaria Riikka Purra (20.1%, 46 seats) also finished above the Social Democrats seats), true anti-Europeans, anti-immigrants, etc.
The Western press went so far as to exclude the NATO question from the electoral result (in the event of Marin’s victory it would have been emphasized), and has even underlined that all the parties have declared themselves pro-Nato. This means that voters are left with little choice to express dissent, hence the vote on the far right.
With no bowls (actually since the polls showed uncertainty) the emphasis was placed on other issues, such as the deadline for zeroing carbon emissions, which the centre-right would like to postpone from 2023 to 2050, the increase of public debt, education, immigration and the welfare state.