{"id":625008,"date":"2023-04-02T03:23:20","date_gmt":"2023-04-02T08:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/02\/finlands-young-leader-is-popular-but-faces-tough-reelection\/"},"modified":"2023-04-02T03:23:20","modified_gmt":"2023-04-02T08:23:20","slug":"finlands-young-leader-is-popular-but-faces-tough-reelection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/02\/finlands-young-leader-is-popular-but-faces-tough-reelection\/","title":{"rendered":"Finland\u2019s young leader is popular but faces tough reelection"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A parliamentary election in Finland<\/a> on Sunday is shaping up as an extremely close race between three parties as Prime Minister Sanna Marin\u2019s<\/a> Social Democrats fight to secure a second term running the government.<\/p>\n

The election is taking place days after Finland cleared the last big hurdle in its 10-month campaign to join NATO<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Over 2,400 candidates from 22 parties are vying for the 200 seats in Finland\u2019s parliament, the Eduskunta. But opinion surveys suggest that three parties will dominate the pack: Marin\u2019s Social Democratic Party, the center-right National Coalition Party and the right-wing populist The Finns party.<\/p>\n

Recent polls indicated each could take about 20% of the vote Sunday. If that happens, no party would be in position to form a government alone; whichever one wins the most votes is expected to begin talks next week on forming a governing coalition.<\/p>\n

Finland\u2019s largest newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, published an editorial that described the election as \u201ca real thriller\u201d and predicted that the tight contest would likely inspire voters to turn out. Some 40% of eligible voters already have cast ballots in advance.<\/p>\n

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Marin, who at age 37 is one of Europe\u2019s youngest leaders, has received praise for her Cabinet\u2019s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Her vocal support of Ukraine in the last year has increased her international visibility. She remains popular at home, but Finns are also frustrated with their country\u2019s rising cost of living.<\/p>\n

The economy, climate change and others issues that affect voters\u2019 daily lives \u2014 like education and social benefits \u2014 have dominated the election campaign. Job creation and Finland\u2019s rapidly increasing government debt are issues that will likely preoccupy the next government of the Nordic nation of 5.5 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbove all, we must seek economic growth and stronger employment,\u201d Marin said in a recent interview with Finnish public broadcaster YLE. \u201cIf we don\u2019t succeed in these two things, we won\u2019t be able to reduce our indebtedness, and we won\u2019t be able to balance our economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine\u00a0prompted Finland to seek NATO membership\u00a0in May 2022, neither the historic decision to abandon the nation\u2019s non-alignment policy nor the war have emerged as major campaign issues. Finland shares a long land border with Russia.<\/p>\n

Marin played a prominent role, along with President Sauli Niinist\u00f6, in advocating for\u00a0Finland\u2019s application to join NATO, which was made in tandem with Sweden. On Friday, she thanked the countries that supported its membership.<\/p>\n

There was a broad consensus among the country\u2019s political parties and overwhelming domestic support for membership in the Western military alliance.<\/p>\n

Kimmo Elo, a senior researcher in parliamentary studies at the University of Turku, said that Finland\u2019s pending bid played \u201ca very small role\u201d in the campaign, making it unlikely that Turkey\u2019s ratification would emerge as a matter of debate or impact voters\u2019 choices.<\/p>\n

Marin has been prime minister since December 2019. Her party leads a center-left coalition government with the centrist Center Party, the Green League, the Left Alliance and the Swedish People\u2019s Party in Finland.<\/p>\n

The leaders of all five parties are women, which has made Marin\u2019s Cabinet a rarity in Europe and rest of the world. Out of a total 19 Cabinet members, 11 are women.<\/p>\n

Marin has ruled out the Social Democrats partnering with The Finns after the election, citing substantial differences in values and policies. The populist, nationalist party\u2019s candidates have run on an anti-immigration and anti-European Union platform.<\/p>\n

Should Marin\u2019s party win, forming the same coalition again is out of the question as the Center Party has said it doesn\u2019t favor such a government composition any more.<\/p>\n

The populists, who also have a woman as party leader, are in turn highly critical of a goal set by Marin\u2019s government to make Finland carbon-neutral and fossil-free by 2035, calling the policy na\u00efve and unrealistic. The Finns envision the country becoming carbon neutral in 2050 at the earliest.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs this how Finland really thinks of saving itself? With green promises and throwing money at everything that sounds good?\u201d Finns leader Riikka Purra wrote in the party\u2019s recent newsletter, referring to pledges by Marin\u2019s Cabinet to increase investments in a green transition and economy.<\/p>\n

The National Coalition Party, led by former Finance Minister Petteri Orpo, shares the same climate-neutrality target as the Social Democrats but could find it difficult to agree on economic policies. NCP is open to forming a coalition with The Finns.<\/p>\n

Orpo, who has headed the party since 2016, has pledged a government under his leadership would create some 100,000 new jobs and encourage entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n

The National Coalition Party also wants to increase the share of energy that Finland gets from nuclear power. The country currently has five reactors which produce about 40% of its electricity.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the most important tasks of the future government is to remarkably speed up the construction of new nuclear power plants in Finland,\u201d Orpo said, writing in a blog on the party\u2019s website that the next prime minister should make nuclear power \u201cthe cornerstone of the government\u2019s energy policy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A parliamentary election in Finland on Sunday is shaping up as an extremely close race between three parties as Prime Minister Sanna Marin\u2019s Social Democrats fight to secure a second term running the government. The election is taking place days after Finland cleared the last big hurdle in its 10-month campaign to join NATO.\u00a0 Over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":625009,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[534,98426,3142],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-625008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-financial","8":"category-finlands","9":"category-leader"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}