Finland holds elections this Sunday, and the prime minister, the Social Democrat Sanna Marin, faces an uncertain scenario of a technical draw between the three major parties that does not guarantee her to lead the future government. The fight is announced to be very close, judging by the latest poll, published this Tuesday by the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper. Preferences are led by the conservative National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) with 19.8%, followed by the social democrat SDP of Marin and the far-right Finns Party (formerly called True Finns), both with 19.2%.
As the poll’s margin of error (2.1%) is greater than the conservatives’ advantage and almost one in three respondents did not give their opinion, the result is unpredictable. And, in any case, the possibility of the current government coalition of five center and left parties being reissued is very remote.
Sanna Marin, 37, is one of the most forceful international voices in support of Ukraine since the Russian invasion, and it has been up to her to pilot, together with the head of state, Sauli Niinistö, the Finnish decision to abandon military neutrality to adhere to NATO.
The Russian aggression against Ukraine and the 1,340 kilometer land border between Finland and Russia led to a radical reversal of citizenship. More than 80% of Finns support joining the Atlantic Alliance -before the war, and historically, that figure barely reached 30%-, which is now only pending final ratification by the Turkish Parliament after approval this Monday by the another long-awaited partner, the Hungarian Parliament. So, Helsinki will have only formal paperwork left in Washington, and Finland will be a member of NATO.
But perhaps Sanna Marin will no longer be in charge of the government when that day comes. “NATO, national defense and the war in Ukraine have hardly appeared in the electoral campaign, because the consensus in the population and in the parties is now very high on these issues,” sums up Minna Ålander, a foreign and security policy analyst. at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA) in Helsinki.
“The issue that has been most debated is debt and how to clean up public finances,” says Ålander. Public debt is equivalent to 73% of GDP, which is 8.1 points more than at the beginning of the legislature.
Due to the strong economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic -with which Marin had to deal a few weeks after becoming prime minister in December 2019- and inflation skyrocketing to 8% and the higher price of energy in the general context derived of the war in Ukraine, is added the entry of the Finnish economy into recession.
All parties agree that fiscal policy will have to be changed. “We are not going to balance public spending or maintain a healthy society based on cuts; That is the bitter medicine of the right and it doesn’t work,” Marin warned at a campaign event. The SDP proposal is to continue investing in education, employment policies and social welfare, and balance public spending with higher taxes on capital and inheritance.
Conservative opposition leader Petteri Orpo, 53, instead argues that Finland should cut spending on unemployment benefits and other welfare programs to prevent public debt from rising, and accuses Marin of “fixing all the debt problems and tax increases. Finns Party leader Riika Purra also preaches austerity in addition to the party’s usual spiel on immigration control, though since the party participated in a coalition government in 2015 it has moderated its tone somewhat.
The conservative Orpo does not rule out agreeing to a government with the Finns Party, something that the social democrat Marin flatly rejects. At the same time, Marin does see a coalition with the conservatives as feasible. “Even if Orpo’s party is ahead of the SDP in the polls, Sanna Marin is the most valued political figure by Finns, so that could influence the final result,” recalls analyst Minna Ålander. In any case, with up to ten parties currently represented in the 200-seat Parliament, the formation of a government will likely require lengthy negotiations.
And given the close fight for the first position that the polls predict, the winner could be decided by a few thousand votes, as already happened in the April 2019 elections. Sanna Marin did not attend that appointment, but her co-religionist and predecessor in the position, Antti Rinne, who resigned after a few months for his handling of a salary dispute in the postal service that threatened to break the government coalition. Marin was Minister of Transport and Communications, and she replaced him at the head of the Executive. When she took office in December 2019, she was 34 years old and became the youngest head of government in the world. In August 2020, the SDP elected her as president of the party, of which she was already vice president.
These elections are therefore, technically, the first that Marin faces as head of the list, but at the same time they are an evaluation of his government work. Some citizens have already evaluated and deposited their vote without waiting for Sunday. Early voting here is in person and it was possible to do it from March 22 to 28, in places such as libraries and supermarkets, as we have seen these days in Helsinki.
