The recent parliamentary elections in Finland might normally have passed largely unnoticed by the rest of the world. The Nordic nation of 5.5 million people, one-third of which lies north of the Arctic Circle, is better known for its landscapes of inland forests, lakes, rivers, and marshes-all contained within an indented coastline peppered with islands, its sauna culture, and for being the happiest nation in the world six years running, but far less so for its domestic politics. The difference this year was the widely reported re-election bid of its “rock-star” incumbent Prime Minister Sanna Marin, interest in which spread wide, well beyond Finland’s borders.
On 2 April 2023, more than 2,400 candidates from 22 political parties competed for 200 seats in the Eduskunta, Finland’s single-chamber legislature. A total of nine parties managed to secure parliamentary representation, with three parties monopolising the vote. The centre-right National Coalition Party (NCP), led by former deputy prime minister and finance minister Petteri Orpo, secured 48 seats with 20.8 per cent of the vote. The right-wing populist Finns Party (PS: Perussuomalaiset), led by Riika Purra, won 46 seats, with 20.1 per cent of the vote. Trailing in third place, Marin’s centre-left Social Democratic Party (SDP) took 43 seats, with 19.9 per cent of the vote, even as it increased its share of the vote and gained three more seats.
SDP leader Sanna Marin was born into a working-class family in Helsinki in 1985. Her early life was marked by her father’s alcoholism, her parents’ divorce, and her upbringing in a two-mother LGBTQ+ household, which she described as a “rainbow family.”. Nonetheless, she became the first member of her family to attend university, qualifying with a master’s degree in administrative science from the University of Tampere. Her political career took off in the southern city of Tampere, third largest city in Finland, largest inland city in Scandinavia, and home to Nokia. By the age of 27, she was chair of Tampere Council, and in 2015 was elected to the Eduskunta for Pirkanmaa (Tampere Region). A rising star, she became transport and communications minister in June 2019, just months before taking over as leader of the nation.
Soon after Marin became 46th Prime Minister and the third woman to hold the position, Finland was confronted with the COVID-19 pandemic. Marin’s handling of the crisis, with imposition of lockdowns, school closures, and a contact tracing smartphone app -Koronavilkku (“Corona Flash) were widely approved of, as was Finland’s application for NATO membership in May 2022. The electorate was overall less in awe of her progressive policies (abortion, paternity leave, shorter working week, and gender equality), a cost-of-living crisis, and social media propagation of a video of Marin’s antics-dancing, singing, and drinking with friends and celebrities- at a party in August 2022. She was subsequently cleared of unlawful conduct by an official inquiry in the following November.
Finland’s right-ward shift has ended Sanna Marin’s hopes for re-election and seen off the five-party ruling left-wing coalition, distinguished by its all-female leadership and the fact that four of them were under the age of 35. The coalition included the Centre Party, Green League, Left Alliance, and Swedish People’s Party of Finland. The NCP election campaign focused on economic recovery, “boosting growth, and creating new jobs”, while pledging to cut back public spending. Since Marin took over in December 2019, aged 34 and the world’s youngest Prime Minister at the time, public debt has reached 73 per cent, up from 65 per cent when she came into power. The SDP campaigned for higher taxes in place of cuts to social welfare budgets and for increased spending to maintain free education, affordable healthcare, and generous pensions. The PS has a conservative, nationalist, Eurosceptic, climate-sceptic, and anti-immigration agenda. Immigration is an area where the three main parties diverge. The NCP favours a policy of managed migration, the PS opposes all immigration, mirroring the Sweden Democrats in Finland’s neighbour, while the SDP has displayed refugee-friendly attitudes. All three parties are backing Ukraine and hoping to secure Finland’s 830-mile-long border with Russia by joining NATO from 4 April as its 31st member.
The NCP is engaged in negotiations to choose its coalition partners, and some compromise is inevitable. Finland’s NATO membership comes at a cost to the economy and will require military spending to be set at 2 per cent of GDP. Whatever the eventual composition of Finland’s ruling ministry, the outcome of the election demonstrates a growing shift in popular opinion away from progressive legislation and liberal immigration policies in Nordic Europe. But Sanna Marin is dynamic and has time on her side. We are unlikely to have heard the last from her.
Ashis Banerjee