The Social Democratic Prime Minister Sanna Marin there is no reconfirmation at the helm of the Finland. Winning the general election, in a hard-fought race between the three main parties, were the conservatory of the National Coalition Party (Ncp), led by the former finance minister Petteri Orpowho got the 20,7% and 48 seats in the Eduskunta, the Finnish parliament. “Based on this result, talks for forming a new government will be launched under the leadership of our party,” said Orpo, who will receive an exploratory post as prime minister. In second place was the ultra-right of True Finnsled by another woman, Riikka Purrawhich stood at the 20,1%, the best result in the party’s history (46 seats). Marin instead finished third, stopping at 19,9% (43 seats). The leader of the outgoing executive admitted defeat: “Democracy has spokenthe Finnish people voted and celebrating democracy is always a beautiful thing,” he said (video), congratulating both the centre-right and the Real Finns.
With these numbers, Nobody he’s able to form a government on my own. Marin, head of government since December 2019, at 37 is among the youngest leaders in Europe: he has received praise for his handling of the pandemic Covid-19 and for his leading role, together with President Sauli Niinistö, in supporting Finland’s application to join the Nato. And staunch support for Ukraine over the past year has boosted its international visibility. However, while he remains popular at home, his party’s positions on theeconomy Finnish – which emerged as the main theme of the electoral campaign – have been much criticized by the Orpo conservatives. “The most important thing for the next government is to fix our economy, push economic growth, balance public finances. And the second very important issue is building NATO’s Finland,” Orpo said. True Finns leader Riikka Purra instead presented a populist and nationalist programmatic platform, anti-immigration e anti-European Union.
Il rebus of the next executive is therefore still to be resolved. Marin ruled out that the Social Democrats could ally themselves with True Finns, underlining the substantial differences in values and policies. The ultra-right is in turn very critical of the goal set by the Marin government to make Finland neutral from the point of view of carbon emissions and free of fossil fuels by 2035calling it naive and unrealistic: the goal of the nationalist party is to move the term to 2050. The Conservatives share the same goal of climate neutrality as the Social Democrats, but may find it difficult to agree on economic policies, while they are open to a coalition pact with Real Finns. Petteri Orpo, 53, head of the party since 2016, has promised that his government will create 100,000 new jobs and will encourage entrepreneurship: his party also wants to increase the share of energy Finland gets from nuclear.
Finland, which shares a long land border with Russia and should join NATO in the coming weeks, it is a member of the European Union and counts 5.5 million inhabitants. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted the country to apply for membership of the Atlantic Alliance in May 2022, abandoning the historic neutrality policy: the choice, however, did not enter among the topics of the electoral campaign, dominated by the debate on the increase of public debtclimate change, education, immigration and social benefits.