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Finland Centre opposition appears to oust Stubb

April 19, 2015

Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb has conceded defeat after preliminary results showed the opposition Centre Party well in the lead. Political newcomer Juha Sipila (pictured) is his likely successor.

https://p.dw.com/p/1FAr2
Chairman Juha Sipilä of the Centre Party reacts to the counted preliminary votes at the party's parliamentary elections reception at the party office in Helsinki, Finland, April 19th, 2015. LEHTIKUVA / Jussi Nukari
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Nukari

Stubb made his announcement on Sunday after the release of results based on advance voting, by which more than one-third of the Finnish electorate cast their ballots.

If the victory of the Centre Party is confirmed, it would mean that its leader, 53-year-old IT millionaire Juha Sipila (pictured above), would likely replace the conservative Stubb, who has headed a four-party left-right coalition since June 2014.

The results show the Centre Party with 23.2 percent of the vote, up 7.4 points compared with the elections in 2011.

Stubb's conservative National Coalition Party was in second place with 17.9 percent, down 2.4 percent on 2011, closely followed by current coalition partner, the Social Democrats, on 17.7 percent. The nationalist #link:17603700:Finns Party under Timo Soini,# which opposes EU-led bailouts and wants Greece out of the eurozone, was fourth on 15.8 percent.

Finnland Wahlen Alexander Stubb
Stubb succeeded Jyrki Katainen as prime minister in 2014Image: Reuters/V. Moilanen/Lehtikuva

Long coalition talks expected

If Sipila is elected, his first task would then be to choose his coalition partners, a process that is likely to take several weeks.

He has said he would be open to including the Euroskeptic Finns Party in a coalition.

Campaigning for the election was dominated by economic issues such as unemployment, benefit cuts and the rising national debt, with #link:18392317:many Finns dissatisfied at Stubb's failure# to pull the eurozone country out of a three-year economic slump.

Finland has seen its two economic mainstays - the forestry sector and the technology industry - shrink dramatically, while unemployment stands at 9.2 percent - the highest level since 2003.

The decline of one-time cellpone giant Nokia has been a major factor in Finland's economic woes, along with reduced trade with its neighbor, Russia, which is struggling under sanctions imposed by the European Union and the USA over the Ukraine crisis.

tj/kms dpa, AFP, Reuters)

LINK: http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,18392954,00.html