Marin loses as far right square up in coalition showdown

Finland's probable new conservative prime minister, Petteri Orpo, was exploring coalition options this week after a narrow election win that shifted the Nordic country's politics to the right and pushed the party of his predecessor Sanna Marin, a star of Europe's left, into third place.

- Jon Henley

Final results showed Orpo's National Conservative party (NCP), which campaigned on a platform of reining in public spending, won 48 seats in the 200-seat parliament, with the far-right, anti-immigration Finns party (PS) getting 46 and Marin's Social Democrats (SDP) 43.

In terms of votes, the result was even closer, with the NCP winning 20.6%, the PS 20.1% and the SDP 19.9%. "You know what? It was a win," Orpo told cheering supporters in Helsinki late last Sunday night, adding that the result gave the NCP "a strong mandate" to pursue its key policies of "fixing our economy, boosting growth, and creating new jobs".

Marin, who had argued for more spending on education and the health service as key to economic growth and said she would prefer raising taxes to cutting welfare, congratulated the winners and said there were "reasons to be happy" with the vote. The SDP increased its share of the vote and gained three seats.

However, the NCP increased its number of MPs by 10, while the PS, which backs spending cuts but campaigned mainly against non-EU immigration, added seven.