HELSINKI: Finland’s centre-right looked on track to win Sunday’s general election, a projection showed with 70 percent of votes counted, beating out the far-right in second and Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s Social Democrats in third.

Marin, who became the world’s youngest prime minister in 2019 at the age of 34, has been fighting to stay in office just days before Finland’s historic accession to the Nato defence alliance.

The projection by public broadcaster Yle showed the centre-right National Coalition Party winning 48 mandates in the 200-seat parliament, ahead of the anti-immigration Finns Party’s 46 seats and Marin’s Social Democrats (SDP) 43.

“If this is correct, then this is a very strong victory,” National Coalition leader Petteri Orpo told public broadcaster Yle.

The biggest party in parliament traditionally gets the first chance to build a government, and since the 1990s that party has always claimed the prime minister’s office.

Riikka Purra, the leader of the populist Finns Party whose support has surged since last summer with the cost of living crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, was meanwhile cautious.

“This is a forecast, so let’s take it that way, but it’s an excellent result,” she said.

Marin, who has struggled to convert her overwhelming popularity into support for her SDP, said she was holding out hope for a turnaround.

“There is still an election night ahead, let’s see it through until the end,” she said. With 80 percent of votes counted, the Finns Party and the National Coalition were tied at 20.2 percent of the vote, slightly ahead of the Social Democrats at 20 percent.

Finland’s most popular PM

Marin is Finland’s most popular prime minister this century, according to polls, and has made headlines internationally for her hard line against Russia.

She is a popular speaker at the World Economic Forum in Davos and has been featured on the cover of Time Magazine and in Vogue.

Yet while some view her as a strong leader who deftly navigated the Covid-19 pandemic and the Nato membership process, others see the rising public debt on her watch and backlash over video clips of her partying as signs of inexperience.

Published in Dawn, April 3rd, 2023