The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Finland: Prime Minister Sanna Marin's party does poorly in local elections

2021-06-16T13:18:39.972Z


Sanna Marin is one of the youngest heads of government in the world, and the Finnish woman's handling of the pandemic earned her a lot of recognition. But their Social Democrats now suffered a clear defeat in the local elections.


Enlarge image

Social Democrat Marin: Only in second place in the local elections

Photo: JONATHAN NACKSTRAND / AFP

Sanna Marin has been ruling Finland for a year and a half.

At 35, the Prime Minister is one of the youngest heads of government in the world - and enjoys a high reputation beyond her country.

For example, Finland had hoarded sufficient protective masks before the corona pandemic and so far got through the pandemic relatively lightly.

Now, however, Marin's Social Democrats have to accept a major defeat in the local elections.

As reported by the public broadcaster Yle, among others, the conservative NCP became the strongest force despite losses.

She got 21.4 percent of the vote, according to the AP news agency.

Marin's Social Democrats, on the other hand, only achieved 17.7 percent and ended up in second place.

It was followed by the Center Party with 14.9 percent.

The turnout was therefore only 55 percent.

"The result wasn't as good as I expected," Marin later admitted.

She was also disappointed with the low turnout.

With the exception of one party, all five parties in the governing coalition lost their approval.

National populists gain the most

There were also significant gains for the national-populist grassroots Finns (formerly also known as True Finns).

They increased by more than five percentage points to 14.5 percent.

According to the AP, Marin's Social Democrats had recently failed to appeal to younger voters.

In the local elections, more than 300 municipalities were elected, around 35,000 candidates entered the race in the country with around 5.5 million inhabitants.

The election is seen as an important test of sentiment ahead of the general election in 2023.

fek / AP

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2021-06-16

You may like

News/Politics 2024-02-11T18:44:14.376Z

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-28T06:04:53.137Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.