Sanna Marin suffers defeat in Finland election as SDP beaten into third place
#Finland’s #prime #minister, Sanna Marin, has lost her battle to stay in power after her centre-left Social Democratic party (#SDP) was narrowly beaten into third place in a cliffhanger election by its conservative and far-right rivals.
With all of the votes counted on Sunday, the #right-#wing National Coalition party (#NCP) won 20.8% of the vote, with the populist, nation-first Finns party scoring 20.1%. Marin’s SDP took 19.9% of the vote. Voter turnout was 71.9%.
Marin congratulated the election winners during her concession speech, but hailed an improvement in both her party’s vote share and its projected number of MPs. “It’s a really good achievement, even though I didn’t finish first today,” she told supporters in Helsinki.
The NCP’s leader, #Petteri #Orpo, told the public broadcaster, Yle, that the result was a “big victory … a strong mandate for our policies”, adding that his party would be leading the coalition talks. Finns leader Riikka Purra called it an “an excellent result”.
Orpo, a 53-year-old former finance minister, said the Nordic country’s solidarity with Kyiv would remain strong during his tenure.
“First to #Ukraine: we #stand by you, with you,” Orpo told the Associated Press at NCP’s victory event. “We cannot accept this terrible war. And we will do all that is needed to help Ukraine, Ukrainian people because they fight for us. This is clear.
“And the message to [Russian president Vladimir] #Putin is: #go #away from Ukraine because you will lose,” Orpo said.
Finland, which shares a long border with Russia, cleared the last hurdles of becoming a Nato member earlier in the week as alliance members Turkey and Hungary signed off the country’s membership bid.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/02/sanna-marin-finland-election-sdp-social-democratic-national-coalition?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other