The head of Finland’s right-wing opposition National Coalition Party, Petteri Orpo, declared victory in the closely contested parliamentary poll on Sunday. Orpo addressed his followers and declared, “We got the biggest mandate.”
The National Coalition Party is Finland’s main conservative party.
According to election statistics from the justice ministry, his party appeared to be on track to win the majority of seats in parliament, 48 out of a total of 200, with 20.5% of the vote. After being assured of his victory, Orpo said that he would form a coalition government at the first opportunity. “Based on this result, talks over forming a new government in Finland will be initiated under the leadership of the National Coalition Party,” the victor said.
The winning-party pushed only marginally behind The Finns, which is a right-wing populist party with 20.1 percent vote, and Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s Social Democrats lost only by a marginal 19.9 percent vote.
After conceding defeat, the 37-year-old prime minister, Sanna Marin, said,“Congratulations to the winner of the elections, congratulations to the National Coalition Party, congratulations to The Finns Party. Democracy has spoken,” the prime minister said in a speech to party members. We have gained support, we have gained more seats [in parliament]. That is an excellent achievement, even if we did not finish first today.”
No party can establish a government on its own because the top three parties received about 20% of the vote each. For the 200 seats in the Nordic nation’s parliament, more than 2,400 candidates representing 22 groups were running.
The NCP, which has been in the lead in polls for almost two years, has accused Marin of weakening the nation’s economic resilience at a time when the country has been severely affected by Europe’s energy crisis, which is being caused by Russia’s conflict in Ukraine, and the cost of living has gone up.
Petteri Orpo
Since joining the legislature in 2007, Petteri Orpo has remained a parliamentary member and after successfully contesting against Alexander Stubb, a former prime minister, for the leadership of the party, Orpo took the helm of the National Coalition.
Orpo, who is regarded as moderate and a skilled negotiator, has held a number of positions in the government, including those of minister of agriculture and forests from 2014 to 2015, interior minister from 2015 to 2016, and finance minister from 2016 to 2019.
The majority of Finland’s political spectrum praised him for how he handled the European migrant crisis in 2015, when the Nordic country saw a tenfold increase in refugee arrivals.
