{"id":30537,"date":"2023-04-02T21:01:43","date_gmt":"2023-04-02T21:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=30537"},"modified":"2023-04-02T21:01:45","modified_gmt":"2023-04-02T21:01:45","slug":"finland-election-centre-right-party-claim-win-amid-tight-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2023\/04\/02\/finland-election-centre-right-party-claim-win-amid-tight-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Finland election: Centre right party claim win amid tight election"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Finland\u2019s Prime Minister Sanna Marin appears to have lost her bid for a second term on Sunday, with her party headed for defeat by two conservative opponents in an extremely tight three-way race for control of parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The center-right National Coalition Party claimed victory Sunday evening with around 97.7% of the votes counted, coming out on top at 20.7%. They were followed closely by right-wing populist party The Finns with 20.1%, while the Social Democrats garnered 19.9%.\u00a0
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With the top three parties each getting around 20% of the vote, no party is in position to form a government alone. Over 2,400 candidates from 22 parties were vying for the 200 seats in the Nordic country\u2019s parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBased on this result, talks over forming a new government to Finland will be initiated under the leadership of the National Coalition Party,\u201d said the party\u2019s leader Petteri Orpo, as he claimed victory surrounded by supporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marin, who at age 37 is one of Europe\u2019s youngest leaders, has received praise for her Cabinet\u2019s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and for her prominent role, along with President Sauli Niinist\u00f6, in advocating for\u00a0Finland\u2019s successful application<\/strong>\u00a0to join NATO. Her vocal support of Ukraine in the last year has increased her international visibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marin remains popular at home but her party\u2019s views on the Finnish economy, which emerged as the main campaign theme, were being challenged by conservatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orpo had hammered on economic issues at a campaign event Saturday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe most important thing in the next government is to fix our economy, push economic growth, balance public economy. And the second very important issue is to build up NATO-Finland,\u201d Orpo told The Associated Press in Espoo, just outside the capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Finns leader Riikka Purra emphasized the populist party would focus on shaping policies regarding migration, climate, criminal and energy if it becomes a partner in the next government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe also want to tighten up our attitude towards the European Union,\u201d Purra said during a campaign event in the municipality of Kirkkonummi, her home district located some 45 kilometers (28 miles) west of Helsinki.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After voting at Helsinki City Hall, university professor Mariana Sepp\u00e4nen said she thinks Marin\u2019s positive reputation abroad exceeds the prime minister\u2019s domestic popularity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think usually the party that has been in charge and has the prime minister … loses the election, and the criticism has been very harsh,\u201d Sepp\u00e4nen said. \u201cBut I think she (Marin) has a lot of support anyway.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine prompted Finland to seek NATO membership in May 2022, neither the historic decision to abandon the nation\u2019s non-alignment policy nor the war have emerged as major campaign issues. Finland shares a long land border with Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apart from Finland\u2019s economy, other issues the parties debated during the election campaign were the government\u2019s increasing debt, climate change, education, immigration and social benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201dI know Sanna Marin is very popular, and she has done great, and most Finns also think that she has done an amazing job with the coronavirus,\u201d another voter, Evelina M\u00e4kel\u00e4, said in Helsinki.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut maybe we have to look at the new crisis that we have; some of us still believe that she does a very good job. Other people want something new, apparently,\u201d M\u00e4kel\u00e4 said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finland, which is expected to join NATO<\/strong> in the coming weeks, is a European Union member with a population of 5.5 million. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Finland\u2019s Prime Minister Sanna Marin appears to have lost her bid for a second term on Sunday, with her party headed for defeat by two conservative opponents in an extremely tight three-way race for control of parliament. The center-right National Coalition Party claimed victory Sunday evening with around 97.7% of the votes counted, coming out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":30543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[461,12],"tags":[9951,10632,9204,3782,10387,11583,9331,3862,10000,2512,5313,5222,5200,8440,6725,6576,5196,423,911,5494,6621,9505,1195,5335,2264,6543,6094,10954,5252,8029,9974,10634,65,4802,11973,5485,1198,9374,3805,3174,6524,10313,6200,3457,6454,6808,5180,7231,214,6348,10885,5251,3954,594],"class_list":["post-30537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-world-news","tag-age","tag-attitude","tag-border","tag-cabinet","tag-campaign","tag-capital","tag-city","tag-climate-change","tag-conservative","tag-conservatives","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid","tag-covid-19","tag-crisis","tag-debt","tag-democrats","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-election","tag-energy","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union","tag-finland","tag-government","tag-growth","tag-immigration","tag-international","tag-invasion","tag-land","tag-leadership","tag-lost","tag-migration","tag-nato","tag-one","tag-pandemic","tag-parliament","tag-population","tag-president","tag-prime-minister","tag-prime-minister-sanna-marin","tag-professor","tag-race","tag-russia","tag-sanna-marin","tag-shares","tag-ukraine","tag-union","tag-university","tag-us","tag-victory","tag-war","tag-will","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}