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Finland’s Social Democrats will try to form a coalition government after a narrow win in parliamentary elections that saw left-leaning parties make sweeping gains, despite a stronger than expected showing from the far right.
The centre-left SDP, led by Antti Rinne, a 56-year-old former trade union leader, will have 40 MPs in a fragmented 200-seat Eduskunta (parliament) after winning 17.7% of the vote following a campaign attacking the austerity policies of the outgoing centre-right coalition.
The far-right, anti-immigration and increasingly radical Finns party won 17.5% of the vote and 39 seats – almost exactly the same as its total in elections in 2011 and 2015, but significantly more than they might have hoped for earlier this year.
On a good night generally for the left, the SDP finished with six more MPs than in the previous parliament, while the Greens gained five and the Radical Left four. Voters chose between 2,500 candidates from 19 political parties and movements.
The biggest loser was the Centre party of the outgoing prime minister Juha Sipilä, who blamed the slump in its support – to 13.8% of the vote and fourth place – on the “difficult economic decisions” his government had had to make to rebalance the economy after a protracted slowdown.
“For the first time since 1999 we are the largest party in Finland,” a triumphant Rinne told supporters in Helsinki. “SDP is the prime minister’s party.”
The result was further evidence of a modest social democratic comeback in Nordic countries, with left-leaning prime ministers now in power in Sweden and Iceland, and the Social Democrats leading in the polls in Denmark, where elections are due this summer.
However, with no single party winning more than 20% of the national vote for the first time in 100 years, and deep divisions within the mainstream parties over the future of Finland’s widely-admired welfare system – which the left want to preserve by increasing taxes and the right to streamline because of rising costs – the SDP leader may find it hard to build a sustainable coalition.
Political analysts said Rinne would probably try to form a broad-based majority government including the Greens and Left party – but could also turn, despite strong disagreements over social and fiscal policy, to the National Coalition party, which won 38 seats, or the Centre party.
Most parties, including the SDP, have said they would find it difficult, if not impossible, to share power with the Finns party and its hardline leader, Jussi Halla-aho, who has shifted the party firmly to the right since a 2017 split that saw half its MPs leave.
“It’s very hard to see that the other parties would say no to the Social Democrats, because then we would be in a situation with Halla-aho trying to form a government and I just don’t see that happening,” said a political commentator, Sini Korpinen.
The strong finish by the Finns party, which was in fifth place in the polls less than six months ago, echoed similar recent performances by hard-right, anti-immigration parties across Europe.
Halla-aho, who has transformed the Finns party from being a populist Eurosceptic movement to a far more explicitly nationalist, far-right organisation that aims to cut immigration to “almost zero” and questions the need for tough action on climate change, ended up winning the most votes of any candidate in the election.
Greenpeace Finland had called Sunday’s vote the climate election, saying “climate and the limits of planet Earth” had “never before been discussed with such seriousness in Finland”. A recent poll showed 70% of respondents felt tackling climate change and reducing carbon footprints should be key priorities of the new government.
The Finns party is the only group in Finland, which according to the World Health Organisation has the highest air quality in the world, to argue the next government should not speed up cutting carbon emissions to combat climate change.
Halla-aho, 47, who was fined by the supreme court in 2012 for blog comments linking Islam to paedophilia and Somalis to theft, has called for a “more moderate and sensible climate policy that does not chase industries away from Finland to countries like China”.
The Finns party is among a number of populist far-right parties, including Germany’s far-right AfD, Italy’s League and the Danish People’s party, to announce plans to join forces after the European parliamentary elections on 23-26 May in an attempt to transform EU policies on migration, families and the environment.