Irish Examiner view: Finland knows — a day is a long time in coalition-building

Sanna Marin, 'the world's coolest prime minister', and other party leaders begin the election post-mortem examination this morning 

Finnish prime minister and Social Democratic Party leader Sanna Marin. Picture: Sergei Grits/AP

For a while, she was known as the “coolest” prime minister in the world, a heroine of the centre-left who fought for her right to party. People danced in support and threw shapes for her on social media. She led her country through the pandemic, and into the waiting room of imminent Nato membership.

By the time the print version of the Irish Examiner is in readers’ hands this morning, we will already have seen on IrishExaminer.com whether Sanna Marin has held on to power in Finland, the EU state that shares a 1,340km border with Russia. 

Polling showed the three main parties — Ms Marin’s Social Democrats (SDP), the conservative National Coalition Party (NCP), and the nationalist Finns Party — too close to call, with predictions all falling within a 2% margin for error.

Marin became the world’s youngest prime minister at 37 in 2019 and has been tipped as a future president of the European Commission, a post which becomes available next year. She apologised and took a drug test in 2022 after photos and video emerged of her drinking and dancing with friends.

Criticisms over the economy

While her personal popularity remains high, her party has proved vulnerable to criticisms over the economy and inflation. While the old Clinton campaign theme “it’s the economy, stupid” may not be quite the knockout truism of old, when coupled with current geopolitical threats which are heightened when Vladimir Putin is your neighbour, it can reduce the appetite for risk among electorates.

The far-right Finns Party, whose priority is to cut non-EU immigration, is short of public suitors for coalition. But that may change. In the febrile world of deal-making, it is a day, rather than a week, which is a “long time in politics”.