However, Finland has defied the trend in the latest EU elections, which would have traditionally indicated the increased support for radical right-wing parties in Europe. However, it was only the Left Alliance and the National Coalition that triumphed over their opponents, which weakened the Finns Party, advocating for nationalist policies.
The Sweden Democrats fell just short of a similar achievement, with the socialist leader Li Andersson polling more votes than any candidate in a European election in Finland. By 8:By 34pm, with votes only cast up to 60%, Andersson had secured 157, 668 votes, the highest number of votes obtained by an MEP hopeful in a election, more than the previous record holder, Eurosceptic Centre Party titan Paavo Väyrynen, who obtained 157, 668 votes in 1996. As it turned out she received votes into almost a quarter of a million.
Andersson was equally enthusiastic about the survey outcome, although she was visibly quite surprised as well.
“I am still in shock actually,” she said. “It is really an unbelievable thing to come out with such result, more than I could imagine and expect. ”
National Coalition leader and Prime Minister Petteri Orpo too won big as his party polled close to a quarter of votes. For instance, Orpo’s government has been preoccupied with changes in the labor market as well as reductions in the expenditure on public services seem to have struck the chord.
“It says for one that the National Coalition is accepted as the official Finnish voice in Europe and that the National Coalition is accepted to look after Finnish interest within Finnish territory ” Orpo said.
Specifically, Green member of the European Parliament Ville Niinistö, who has also been re-elected, referred to Andersson’s victory in the same way many other new leftist trends in the Finnish politics were referred to.
The party chairman emphasised that ‘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’.
Three parties, the Greens, Centre, and SDP, remained in the parliament the same as before February 2006, each having two seats. The Left Alliance, which increased its representation by two more, had Merja Kyllönen, a former minister, and Jussi Saramo, chair of the parliamentary group.
The National Coalition also lost, with the failed presidential candidate Mika Aaltola securing about 95 000 votes while the party is a member of only a few months.
On the other hand, in the same elections Finns Party which has xenophobic tones performed poorly by getting only one seat in 720-member EU Parliament. As for the president of the FinnParty, Riikka Purra, she did not try to mask her frustration.
It implies that there is little doubt that it is extremely poor and this was said by Purra. “Here polarisation is evident ; the left had got a marvelous result as is the support for NCP . ”
Purra mentioned that citizens of this Eurosceptic party do not have much interest in European elections and it could also have been a reason for the low polling rate. The Finns Party suffered a disastrous outcome seen by the drastic reduction by halves of the percentage they received from the previous poll where they garnered 13. 9 percent in 2019 trailing to much lesser this time around.
The party had also agreed not to have MEP Teuvo Hakarainen in their list, he was viewed to be unprofessional. This means that the Oulu MP Sebastian Tynkkynen gets to occupy the single seat belonging to this party. Hakarainen was an aspirant of the Freedom Party which she ran in an election securing not more than 7,000 votes to be elected.
Overall turnout was 42. 4%, slightly lower than the previous elections to presidency and the parliament, but still just 1% less than the EU elections of 2019.
As radical right parties gain grounds across Europe, Finns Party have suffered big blows that have seen them lose more members of the European Parliament than they initially had. Purra, who served as the minister of finance in the previous parliament, and the poster child for massive austerity measures in public service, admitted that the party has to ask itself why voters from the party did not go to polls.
“At the moment, I think I am merely frustrated,” Purra added.
In this context, the Finns’ results indicated that right-wing forces have not dominated the party system in the way that has been exhibited across the continent in the ID and ECR groups, and that the uniquely Finnish political setting has also allowed the left and centrist forces to retain, and even gain a foothold.
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