In Finland on Thursday Petteri Orpo, the leader of the center-right National Coalition Party (PCN) and winner of the elections last April, announced the formation of a governing coalition that will also include the far-right populist Finns and the second most voted in the April election. The PCN had been the party with the most votes but had not obtained an absolute majority: the negotiations to form a coalition went on for 11 weeks, during which the interim prime minister was Sanna Marin, leader of the centre-left Social Democrats, the third most voted party in the elections.
Despite this result, and although coalitions between parties of different orientations are not uncommon in Finland, the Social Democrats were excluded from the newly announced coalition. In addition to the Finns, the coalition will include the Swedish People’s Party, of the centre, and the Christian Democrats, of the right, for a total of 108 seats out of a total of 200. The Finns have very hard positions on immigration, they are calling for Finland to leave the European Union, they do not prioritize climate policies and, following a split in the party in 2017, mainly the members with the most positions remained radicals.