The Centre Party (Kesk, agrarian centrists) under the leadership of Juha Sipilä won by far. Sipilä, an IT-millionaire and Laestadian, will be the next prime minister, and will form the next government.

The party is deeply divided on the issue of Russia, with an old-school movement in the party being markedly pro-Russian, to the point of Finlandization. These individuals did not score well in the elections, but Sipilä has given them some cautious support recently. On the other hand, there is also a pro-EU/Western movement within the party, led by international political heavyweight Olli Rehn.

The populist Finns Party (PS) under Timo Soini lost ground, but rose to the second largest party as others lost more. Leader Timo Soini, something as rare as a Finnish Catholic, has staunchly denied that the party is xenophobic, and although there certainly are members in the party that hold and express such views, the party as a whole seems more interested in making a big fuzz about Swedish-speakers, economic support to Greece, and the economy as a whole. They have often been compared to the Swedish Democrats in Sweden, though Soini repeatedly has slammed this as inaccurate. Has traditionally been anti-EU and -NATO, but since the Russo-Ukrainian wars have started, it has seemingly softened up its NATO-stance. What is certain is that unlike several other European right-wing populists, they do not like Russia.

The National Coalition Party (Kok, middle-right conservative liberals) was the ruling party under Alexander Stubb, and was predicted to be heading for a disastrous election. They lost quite a number of seats, but still came in as third largest party, only one seat behind PS, and can be seen as having done better (or less worse) than anticipated. The party is decidedly pro-EU, and the only openly(?) pro-NATO party amongst the four big parties.

The Social Democratic Party (SDP) under former union boss Antti Rinne had a minor disaster on election day, and was far outpaced by not only Kesk, but also by PS and Kok. While the party leadership is centre-left, party strongman Erkki Tuomioja leads a strong and vocal group of party members that are somewhat farther left (and closer to Russia) than the official party line. Tuomioja has also clashed publicly with a number of officers and researchers, and leaked e-mails indicates he wasn’t too popular amongst the people surrounding the outgoing prime minister.

Minor parties includes former defence minister Carl Haglund’s Swedish-speaking Swedish People’s Party of Finland (SFP/RKP), the victorious Green League (Vihr), the not-so-victorious Left Alliance (Vas), and the slightly-more-victorious-than-the-left-alliance Christian Democrats (KD).

The problem with analyzing what this means for Finland in the next four years is that no-one knows what the government will look like.

The Centre Party can choose to form a government with PS and Kok, something that might seem like a logical move. This could be said to be directly in support of what the people wanted on election day, and Sipilä could then force the populists to take some responsibility (while secretly hoping that they fail miserably, and that PS would be demoted back to a minor party in the next round of elections). The main problem with this is that having three strong parties means that if PS and Kok were in agreement, they could try and go against the prime minister’s party in individual questions, making the coalition hard to rule. Add to this the fact that he would have the ex-prime minister as one of his lesser ministers, and one can easily see problems, even before one starts to question whether they can agree on how the country should be handled.

SDP was widely promoted as the most likely candidate to join a coalition before the election, as it is the major party that currently stands closest to Kesk ideologically. However, due to its extremely weak performance on election day, this now seems less likely, with the party possibly choosing to go take four years off from responsibility to try and bolster its ranks until the next election. The strong point is that bringing SDP into the government might provide for better relations between the government and the labor unions.

Another opportunity is trying to create a coalition of two major parties and a number of minor. Of the minor parties, both RKP/SFP and Vihr would probably have a hard time sitting in the same government as Soini and his PS. RKP/SFP has sat in every single government since the 1970s, and are usually happy to be included as long as they can defend the status quo in the Finnish language policy. This has been a rather cheap political price to pay for whoever has been the prime minister at any given time, but the appearance of PS might change this. The main problem for the Greens is probably that Sipilä has emphasized trust, something which the Greens can have a hard time supplying, having ditched the former government half a year before the current elections…

Vas on the other hand faces the same problem as SDP. In fact, the joint Finnish left (in this case SDP+Vas) is on record-low levels at around 25%, and would probably have a hard time at the negotiating table. Vas have also been arguing a rather different economic policy than the rest of the parties throughout the election process, and might have a hard time sitting in the same coalition as Kok (or anybody else, for that matter).

This leaves KD, which might fit well in with all of the top-three parties in some sort of a conservative coalition, but their main problem is that they are the smallest party in the parliament, only bringing five seats to the table.

The National Security View

The parties that are in top are all positive to a strong Finnish Defence Force. Or rather, that has been the official policy before the elections. So far, this has not shown in any meaningful way. None of the parties are pushing for a public referendum on NATO, but all major parties would like to “keep the door open”.

If we get a coalition with three major conservative parties joining force, we might see a push for more money. However, the more likely way is unfortunately a slight raise in defence spendings, touted as a big increase, followed by a reduction in training hours, major surface vessels, and fighters. This will then be accompanied by a paragraph stating that “Finland will not currently strive for a full membership in NATO, but will continue its current co-operation, and keeps the possibility open to join at a later date.”

As a whole, the Finnish National Security policy is slowly starting to look like it is modeled after the Swedish, and unfortunately the current round of elections does not seem to change that.

An interesting point, is that both PS and Kok at least in theory openly support the idea that Finland should abandon the Ottawa Treaty and reacquire anti-personnel landmines. In practice, it is highly doubtful if they are prepared to pay the diplomatic price this would cost internationally, but at least on paper there exist a possibility.

Yes, in Finland you can actually be the second largest party and use the slogan “Landmines back, FOR FCKS SAKE!” in marketing.