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FINLAND-VOTE
Finland goes to polls as leftists tipped for next government
HELSINKI, April 14, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Finns voted on Sunday in a general
election in which widespread public dissatisfaction with recent spending cuts
looked likely to propel the opposition Social Democratic Party back to
government for the first time in 16 years.
The left-wing party leads Finland’s two main opinion polls with about 19
percent of the vote, having campaigned against the austerity policies of
Centre Party Prime Minister Juha Sipila and his Finance Minister Petteri Orpo
— leader of the conservative National Coalition Party.
But the far-right Finns Party, led by hardline MEP Jussi Halla-aho, has
seen a surge in support in recent months during an anti-immigration dominated
campaign, urging people to “Vote for some borders”.
Polls show the Finns Party ending up in second or third place, meaning it
could hold significant influence in the talks to form the next government,
which in Finland is typically a coalition of three or four parties.
The current centre-right government, elected in 2015, promised to
rebalance the nation’s economy after a prolonged slump with a programme of
deep spending reductions.
However, cuts to Finland’s prized education system, and a tightening of
unemployment benefit criteria, provoked loud and widespread public
opposition.
Casting her vote shortly after polling stations opened at 9:00 am (0600
GMT), a Helsinki resident who gave her name as Jenny said that she had only
settled on who to vote for at the last minute.
“There have been a lot of cuts and some, like education, in areas they
promised they wouldn’t cut. Of course, the parties from the last government
are going to suffer because of that now,” she told AFP.
Another voter, Katja Katajamaki, told AFP she felt the government’s
austerity had gone “too far in some ways”.
“I don’t think that you just fix the situation with spending cuts,” she
said.
Petteri Orpo, leader of the conservative National Coalition Party and co-
architect of the government’s savings programme, has denounced the Social
Democratic Party’s anti-austerity plans as “irresponsible”.
However, in a tacit acknowledgement that the public mood has turned
against further belt-tightening, Orpo has insisted the economy is now strong
enough to allow for some more generous public spending.
A record 1.5 million Finns, over a third of the electorate, had already
cast their ballots during a week of advance voting earlier this month.
– Populist surge –
Opinion polls suggest the Social Democrats’ lead has narrowed in recent
weeks to as little as two points, ahead of the National Coalition and Finns
Party which are battling it out for second place.
Some have blamed the shrinking lead on the inability of party leader
Antti Rinne, a 56-year-old former trade union boss, to attract large numbers
of new, younger voters.
The growing Finns Party ratings, on the other hand, appear to be driven
by new supporters who have not voted in the past.
The Finns Party has run a vocal campaign calling for asylum-based
immigration to be reduced to almost zero, and decrying the “climate hysteria”
of other parties seeking action against global warming.
At a Finns Party rally on the eve of the vote in Myyrmaki, a
disadvantaged suburb of the capital, a crowd of people, young and old,
clamoured around party leader Jussi Halla-aho, asking for autographs and
congratulating him on the campaign. “You will be the next prime minister,”
one woman assured him.
Forecasts suggest no party is likely to draw more than 20 percent of the
vote, meaning the result could be historically close.
This could make the negotiations to build a government coalition
particularly tricky.
The major parties have all expressed strong reservations about joining a
government with the Finns Party, whose policies lurched to the right after
Halla-aho became leader in 2017.
– Ageing population pressure –
Finland has a rapidly ageing population and declining birth rate, and the
question of how to keep funding the country’s generous welfare state has been
a key election battleground.
Yet the Social Democratic Party may face tough economic conditions in
which to implement its anti-austerity promises: many economic forecasts
suggest Finland’s GDP growth will slow in the coming years.
Immigration became a hot election topic despite Finland being western
Europe’s most homogenous country with a foreign-born population of just 6.6
percent.
In January, outrage over highly publicised reports of an alleged string
of sexual assaults by immigrant men boosted support for the Finns Party’s
anti-immigration agenda.
Polls close at 8:00 pm (1700 GMT), with all votes provisionally counted
by 9:45 pm (1845 GMT.
BSS/AFP/RY/1628 hrs