Opposition tipped to seize power in Finland
Print Edition
Finns voted yesterday in an election expected to usher the opposition Centre Party into government amid voter discontent over conservative Prime Minister Alexander Stubb’s failure to pull Finland out of a three-year economic slump.
Public opinion polls have predicted a resounding victory for the liberal-agrarian Centre Party leader Juha Sipila, a 53-year-old IT millionaire and newcomer to politics.
Polling stations were to close at 8pm, when the results of advance voting — by which more than one third of the electorate cast their ballots — were to be released.
Campaigning heavily on his business know-how, Sipila has vowed to get the economy back on track after three years of recession and stagnation, austerity and failed reforms. “Our country deserves better,” Sipila wrote on his blog on Saturday. “Politics must be returned to a climate of trust.”
Elected to parliament in 2011, Sipila became party leader in 2012 when he was still virtually unknown to most Finns. Stubb’s four-party left-right coalition has been mired in internal discord, preventing it from pushing through any real policy changes.
Finland was long a top performer in the eurozone, hailed by Germany and credit rating agencies for running a tight economic ship. But it has failed to adapt to a rapidly changing economic climate.
The two pillars of its economy, the forestry sector and technology industry led by one-time giant Nokia, have shrunk dramatically, while two of Finland’s biggest trading partners, Russia and the eurozone, are slogging through their own economic woes. Unemployment is at its highest level since 2003, at 9.2 percent.
The Centre Party, in opposition since 2011 and which has fostered 12 prime ministers, has recently been credited with around 24 percent support.
If a Centre victory is confirmed, Sipila’s first task will be to pick his coalition partners. Tradition dictates that the largest party takes the post of prime minister and forms a government with the other largest parties to obtain a majority in parliament. Several weeks of thorny negotiations are expected before Sipila is able to present a coalition.
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