Finland's results in the European election bucked a continent-wide trend of rising support for parties on the outer fringe of right-wing politics, with the Left Alliance and the National Coalition winning big at the expense of the nationalist Finns Party. Leftist leader Li Andersson received more votes than any other candidate has ever received in a European election. By 8:34pm, with just 60 percent of the vote counted, she had already beaten Eurosceptic Centre Party grandee Paavo Väyrynen's total of 157 668 votes in the 1996 election. She ended up getting nearly a quarter of a million votes. Andersson was visibly delighted after the results were announced. ”I'm still in shock. This is an incredibly fantastic result, much better than I could have ever dared to expect,” she said. In his victory speech, National Coalition leader Petteri Orpo told the party faithful that he was proud of their achievement in topping the poll with nearly one in every four votes cast. Orpo has been Prime Minister for more than a year and pushed through a government programme designed to shake up Finland's labour market bargaining and cut public spending, and his party's supporters seem pleased with that performance. ”That says that the National Coalition is trusted as a representative of Finland in Europe, and that the National Coalition is also trusted to take care of Finnish business inside Finland,” said Orpo. Green MEP Ville Niinistö, who was re-elected, compared Andersson to other recent stars in the green and left traditions. ”In the parliamentary elections there was the Sanna Marin phenomenon, in the presidential elections we had the Pekka Haavisto phenomenon, and now it was the Li Andersson phenomenon,” said Niinistö. The Greens retained their two spots in the parliament, as did the Centre and the SDP. The Left Alliance gained two, former minister Merja Kyllönen and parliamentary group chair Jussi Saramo. The National Coalition saw failed presidential candidate Mika Aaltola elected on their list with some 95,000 votes after he joined the party several months ago. While the National Coalition and Left Alliance celebrated, the mood at the Finns Party event was more sombre. ”There is no other opinion other than it is extremely poor,” commented Riikka Purra, leader of the Finns Party, on the party's result, which was only enough to secure one seat in the 720-member EU parliament. ”Polarisation is occurring here; the left's result looks remarkable, and so does the support for the NCP,” she said. Purra noted that, on average, the traditionally Eurosceptic party's supporters approach the European elections ”if not negatively, then indifferently.” Turnout at this election was 42.4 percent overall, well down on presidential and parliamentary elections but only 0.3 of a percentage point down on the total in 2019. In that election, the Finns Party got 13.9 percent of the vote, more than six percentage points more than it did this time round. The party had prevented MEP Teuvo Hakarainen from running on the party's list this time around after questions about his professionalism in Brussels. Oulu MP Sebastian Tynkkynen secured the party's single seat. Hakkarainen ran on the Freedom Party's list, and secured 7,000 votes but failed to get elected. With radical right parties making gains across Europe, the Finns Party was left with fewer MEPs than it had after the 2019 election. Leader Purra, who as Finance Minister has been the face of a barrage of spending cuts aimed at public services, said that the party would consider the lessons to be learned from the results, but she wondered why the Finns Party has not managed to get its supporters to vote.
”Right now, I am just disappointed.”
The situation continent-wide could look very different to the Finnish results, however. Parties in the right-wing ID and ECR groups are expected to make gains, but will likely find it difficult to work together and push through their own agenda. You can find all results, including elected MEPs, at Yle's results service.
