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What matters most is for somebody to win and put together a government – how apt these words by a Finnish businessman to express the frustration created by former coalition, a motley mix and therefore rather indecisive. Yesterday, the Finns elected themselves a new parliament. As predicted by polls, a decided winner emerged in Centre Party led by its new leader Juha Sipilä.
Looks like the above-quoted businessman might be pleased as, in addition to definite winner, lots of theoretical options exist for a majority coalition of under six parties in the 200-seat parliament. While the last time majority coalition plan was derailed by True Finns head Timo Soini demanded to forsake his main elections theme, this time helping Greece is not an issue to upset Finnish domestic politics.
Unlike nations like Sweden, where parties come in pretty well-established blocks, it is not habit in Finland to declare partners-to-be before the elections. Therefore, the post-elections atmosphere is understandably pregnant with speculations. Even so, the ball is clearly in the hands of the winner Juha Sipilä and he/his party will decide with whom they will start talks and create a coalition.
During these elections, the undisputed main issue was the economy. Indeed: for the Finnish voter, outlook of the economy is frightening. From the crisis that started in 2008, Finland emerged as among the strongest nations in Europe. Perhaps, that was what lulled the Finns to sleep so the last elections were rather spent arguing about Greece than problems at home. By now, it has painfully dawned on the Finns how badly they need reforms to quicken the entire economic structure.
Here in Estonia, we are interested mainly as friends. And yet, two topics are mainly on our mind: economy, as well as foreign and defence policy.
Who is Finland’s likely next Prime Minister Juha Sipilä, and what are his stands in these issues? The main characteristic seems to be that even Finns know little except he looks like a nice chap. A week ago, the writer Jari Tervo said he’d only met Juha Sipilä once. «It happened in Tampere, at a taxi stop. He came across as pleasant. The feeling is shared by majority of Finns, though they’ve met the man even less frequently.»
As leader of party, Centre has definitely gotten its second wind, and the people injected some optimism: restoring competitiveness is the aim of economic policy. By previous statements, he does not have a clear-cut foreign and defence policy line. But then, in these issues Finland historically possesses a strong consensus culture and, possibly, in foreign policy the President will have a stronger say.