Sanna Marin concedes defeat in Finland

defining image of the Finnish election campaign: , the Social Democratic prime minister, and Riikka Purra, leader of the hard-right Finns Party, wagging their fingers furiously at each other during a televised debate. Yet in the end the winner was neither Ms Marin nor Ms Purra, but the third candidate in the debate. Petteri Orpo’s centre-right National Coalition party narrowly won Finland’s general election on April 2nd, taking 20.8% of the vote to the Finns’ 20.1% and the Social Democrats’ 19.9%. Mr Orpo now faces the tricky task of forming a governing coalition. The 37-year-old Ms Marin, who has been prime minister since 2019, won international fame for her strong support for Ukraine and decisiveness in bringing : on April 4th it became the 31st member of the alliance. Although her image was coloured by an embarrassing leak last summer of home videos showing her dancing enthusiastically with friends (she took a drug test to squash rumours), Finns had come to take Ms Marin seriously after her solid handling of covid policy. “She came in as a young prime minister in a difficult situation, but she was very credible as a leader throughout the pandemic,” says Teija Tiilikainen, a political scientist.