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Notes -
The Finnish election happened last Sunday. The ruling centre-left government and its parties lost seats, though the Social Democrats could recoup some of their losses from other governing parties. The right-wing parties won a resounding victory, though it remains to be seen whether the neoliberal National Coalition, now the top party, will build a right-wing government with the nationalist Finns Party or a centrist liberal government with the Social Democrats. Many options will be considered.
More on this and the past four years can be read from the following article.
Culture-war-wise, this election probably confirmed that 1. economic questions (the base for National Coalition's victory, particularly debt) still come first in Finland and 2. while immigration probably played a role, and perhaps stuff like trans issues or generic anti-wokeness, the main culture war in Finland still is basically what could be described as "environmentalism vs. standard middle-class way of life", ie. whether the so called green shift and strict climate targets are electorally compatible with people's fears over losing their job, seeing costs of living (fuel, electricity, food etc.) go up, and generally whether environmentalism is just an urban academic fad incompatible with normie life, particularly in rural areas. It's hard to see this one winding down in the future, either.
If the National Coalition decides to work together with the Social Democrats, do you know how they will square their economic differences?
If NC works with the Finns Party do they get a green light on economic neoliberalism or are the FP populists on economic issues as well as social issues?
Depends purely on the setup. The negotiations would show if the NC can negotiate from a position of strength or have to come on knees to the SDs if a right-wing government falls through.
Yes, pretty much. This sort of a government would almost certainly mean that the parties bond over their shared agreement on most economic issues, TFP gets concessions on humanitarian immigration and will in turn have to concede some of their goals on labor-based immigration and things like mandatory education of Swedish (which is currently not one of their top issues). Environment is the hard part, NC at least is making sounds like they actually believe that the 2035 carbon-neutrality goal must say (it's seen as a potential way to get ESG investments to Finland).
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