She immediately notices it at the Finnish public broadcaster YLE: it is again Sanna Marin (37) who is in the international spotlight. On its website, YLE sums up how major international media mainly write about Marin, after last Sunday’s Finnish elections. The words “rock star” and “superstar” fall. And that while the Social Democrat Marin, who became prime minister in 2019 and hoped to be re-elected again, did not win.
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Since taking office as the youngest prime minister ever, Marin has gained international fame, including for the smooth way in which she guided Finland into NATO – the country will formally join this Tuesday. So: surprise everywhere that this politician with an international star status did not make it in her own country. Although her Social Democratic Party (SDP) received slightly more votes than in 2019, two right-wing parties grew even larger.
Pull right
Petteri Orpo is much what Marin is not: man, fifties and right-wing. His National Coalition Party (NCP), right of centre, won the most votes: 48 of the 200 seats in parliament. Second place goes to a party that is even more right-wing: the Finns Party, with 46 seats. Marin’s SDP won 43 seats. With his victory, Orpo now has the mandate to try and form a coalition. The first talks will start next week. The leader of the largest party usually becomes prime minister in Finland.
With the choice for these two parties, the Finns make a striking move to the right. In total, two-thirds of voters voted for a right-wing party, one-third for a left-wing one, says professor of political history Juhana Aunesluoma of the University of Helsinki. “Never before has that relationship been so skewed.”
Orpo’s NCP has become the largest right-wing party. Ideologically, it fits in with the liberal-conservative tradition: the government should not make itself too big, let the market do its job. His priority, he said Sunday evening during his victory speech, is to „fix”.
Under the leadership of Marin, who sees a major role for the government as a social democrat, the national debt has risen sharply, to 73 percent of GDP. By way of comparison: in the Netherlands this percentage is less than 50 percent. Surprisingly, Orpo has succeeded in making this rock solid theme, the national debt, the most important election theme.
Also surprising: he managed to appeal to many Finns with a usually not very popular political story. In order to get those public finances healthy again, cutbacks are inevitable, he argued. He wants to cut the classic pillars of the welfare state, such as unemployment benefits. In total, Orpo wants to save 6 billion, Tuesday morning he already warned that “difficult times and tough decisions” await. Marin wanted to avoid austerity and rather reform the tax system.
coalitions
Petteri Orpo grew up in the village of Vuorenmaa in southern Finland, the son of two schoolteachers. He writes that he has only positive memories of his childhood, with two older sisters at home and a lot of scouting and fishing on his personal website. After his military service, he went to study economics at the university in Turku, in the southwestern tip of Finland.
Now in Orpo, father of two teenage children, who has been politically active for 25 years. After several positions in the National Coalition Party, he was elected to the Finnish Parliament in 2007. From 2014 he held various ministerial positions. Now Orpo may hold the highest political office, if he manages to form a coalition.
He has roughly two options, outlines professor Aunesluoma. On the right, with the radical right Finn Party, or on the left, with Marin’s social democrats. If he can continue with one of these two parties, he will also need one or more smaller parties, although some of them have already excluded the Finns. Aunesluoma does not dare to predict which of these combinations is the most promising, both bring their own difficulties.
The Finns Party achieved an exceptionally good result: the best since the party was founded in 1995. Forewoman Riikka Purra (45) even got more preferential votes than anyone else. So she can confidently enter a negotiation. But the party is really very different from Orpo’s NCP: populist, nationalist, anti-immigration. Purra’s favorite topic in the campaign: how Finland should keep immigration to an absolute minimum – although there is already relatively little immigration. The NCP believes that Finland does need immigrants, otherwise there will be too few workers.
The parties also think fundamentally differently about climate and Europe: the Finn Party wants Finland to scale back its climate targets and wants to leave the EU. Another obstacle: some smaller parties have already said they want to join the opposition, or at least not with the Finns in a coalition.
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But when collaborating with the social democrats, Orpo has to make concessions to the party he opposed in the campaign. The Finns want “change,” Orpo said in response to his victory, but if he starts working with the left, it probably won’t come as much as he envisions.
There is also speculation about Marin’s future here and there. What does she want now? “She is very smart – no one knows it,” says Aunesluoma. Her name is called for high positions within the EU. ‘Just’ a ministerial post in Orpo’s government could theoretically also be possible, although that is less obvious. Aunesluoma: “She is a strong-willed leader, she participated to win these elections.”