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Petteri Orpo.
NCP leader Petteri Orpo greets supporters after leading his party to victory. Image: Silja Viitala / Yle
Parliamentary elections 2023

As it happened: Sanna Marin heads for the exit as Finland veers right

Finland's Centre-right National Coalition Party won parliamentary elections on Sunday, with the nationalist Finns Party in second place.

    • Zena Iovino
    • Egan Richardson
•

Finland is likely to get a new Prime Minister after an election win for Petteri Orpo's centre-right National Coalition Party (NCP). With more than 98 percent of the vote counted on election night, the NCP had 20.8 percent of the vote and 48 seats in parliament.

"Do you know what? It was a win," said Orpo as he arrived to greet cheering supporters.

Current premier Sanna Marin's Social Democrats increased their share of the vote and number of seats by three, but still finished in third place on 19.9 percent.

The radical right Finns Party, meanwhile, gained seven new MPs and took 20 percent of the vote.

The Centre Party, Left Alliance and Greens all suffered large losses after their participation in the current five-party coalition, with leaders of all three saying it would be difficult for them to go back into government after these election results.

Orpo faces a difficult job forming a government in the new parliament, with his first task to put out feelers to each of the parties to find any common ground on the important issues and explore the prospect of drafting a government programme.

Once that task is complete, he will enter into negotiations with his preferred coalition partners, and set out a plan for the next four years.

His first task is to choose a main partner, and it could be either the SDP or the Finns Party. Forming a coalition with Marin's SDP could be difficult, given the parties' wildly divergent views on state finances and the need for budget cuts.

Indeed his own party activists booed the prospects of joining a so-called "blue-red" government coalition with the SDP, suggesting that an economically right-wing government with the Finns Party might be the preferred option for many in the NCP.

That is not without its difficulties, however. The Finns Party has a long-term goal of leading Finland out of the European Union, and it is fiercely opposed to increasing work-based immigration. On both issues, the NCP is far apart from its populist counterpart.

The nationalist party has, however, in recent years shifted its economic policy positions from the left to the right.

Egan Richardson

That's a wrap

We're wrapping up the live blog for the evening, with 99 percent of the vote counted. Be sure to check our special edition of our All Points North podcast on Monday where we will discuss all the results.

And of course the website will have all the news and reaction, including an election special paper review.

Egan Richardson

Centre rues losses

Riikka Pakarinen, Markus Lohi, Petri Honkonen sillä hetkellä, kun Ylen ennuste julkaistiin. Keskustan puoluetoimisto, vaalivalvojaiset 2023
Centre Party leaders were pensive at their watch party. Image: Jani Saikko / Yle

Yle's forecast suggests that the Centre Party will lose eight MPs. Party leader Annika Saarikko told Yle's broadcast that the result was a disappointment.

"On that basis it is difficult to see the Centre taking on governmental responsibility," said Saarikko. "We have eight years in government behind us, and now we need to start working to regain our position as a properly large party."

Saarikko did not offer a view on her own position as party leader.

Egan Richardson

Yle forecasts win for NCP

Riikka Purra, Sanna Marin ja Petteri Orpo.
There have been doubts about the personal chemistry between the leaders of the three main parties. Image: Jani Saikko / Yle

Yle's election result forecast suggests that the National Coalition Party will win the most seats in the parliamentary election, with 48 MPs, an increase of ten spots from 2019.

"The projection suggests there's a strong mandate for our policies," said NCP leader Petteri Orpo.

Next is the Finns Party with 46 MPs. The Social Democratic Party is in third place with 43 legislators.

The Finns Party's Riikka Purra said she was pleased with the forecast.

"We're still vying to be number one, but seven more seats is an excellent result."

The Centre would drop eight seats to 23, with 13 for the Greens, 11 for the Left Alliance and nine seats for the Swedish People's party. The Christian Democrats are forecast to get five seats, with Movement Now taking one.

Egan Richardson

Turnout down slightly on 2019

Kaksi vaalitoimitsijaa tyhjentää vaaliuurnaa Pieksämäellä pöydälle.
Votes being counted in the Finnish election. Image: Jouni Kirvesmies / Yle

Turnout in the Finnish election is at a similar level to 2019. Some 71.9 percent of Finnish citizens resident in Finland voted this time out, compared with 72.1 percent four years ago.

Just over 4.5 million people are entitled to vote in parliamentary elections.

Egan Richardson

Turtiainen dropping out of parliament

Ano Turtiainen eduskunnassa 20. huhtikuuta.
Ano Turtiainen was kicked out of the Finns Party. Image: Silja Viitala / Yle

Ano Turtiainen, the former Finns Party MP who was expelled from the party after a racist tweet, looks to be losing his bid for re-election.

In advance voting he received just 169 votes in the south-east Finland electoral district. He had first run for parliament in 2019, getting 3,264 votes on the Finns Party ticket.

He was expelled from the party after publishing a tweet mocking George Floyd, the Minnesota man who died during a police stop in 2020.

He then formed his own parliamentary group, and eventually got the Power Belongs to the People group registered as a political party.

In May 2022 Turtiainen told Russian television that he did not believe the results of opinion polls showing support for joining Nato. He claimed that Finland was dominated by a "globalist" elite.

Zena Iovino

Green disappointment

Maria Ohisalo Vihreiden vaalivalvojaisissa.
Maria Ohisalo has served as Minister for the Environment and Climate Change in Marin's coalition government. Image: Tuomo Björksten / Yle

With half of the votes counted, the Green Party, a partner in the current government, is gearing up for disappointment, with around seven percent of the vote.

"There is no way we can be happy with this result," said Maria Ohisalo, Green Party chair.

The commitment to carbon neutrality by 2035 was a main goal of Sanna Marin's left-leaning, woman-led government.

Zena Iovino

Women in the lead

The tabulation of votes cast during early voting revealed that Social Democratic leader Sanna Marin, NCP vice-chair Elina Valtonen and Finns Party chair Riikka Purra were the most popular individual candidates.

This trio was followed by NCP MP Antti Häkkänen, who chairs Parliament's Defence Committee, as well as Left Alliance chair Li Andersson.

Egan Richardson

Finns Party expectant

Finns Party leaders wait for election results on 2 April 2023.
Finns Party leader Riikka Purra waits for election results. Image: Ronan Browne / Yle

Finns Party leader Riikka Purra told Yle News that the advance voting totals might not indicate a bad night for her party.

"Well the evening is so exciting and we have a clear increase in relation to the last election, 2019, and if we look at the advance polling votes of 2019 the increase is quite dramatic, so anything can happen, and the three biggest parties they are clearly there, and others are losing seats at the moment, but a very exciting evening," said Purra, who said she was still feeling confident, but "let's see" what the final results might be.

Egan Richardson

NCP leads on early votes

The polls have now closed. Advance voting results have been announced, and they show a lead for the National Coalition Party on 20.8 percent. In second place is the Social Democratic Party on 20.7 percent, with the Finns Party in third position with 18.6 percent.

More than 40 percent of the electorate voted during the advance voting period.

You can check the results as they are updated in real time via our results article and the Yle results service.