Winners and losers: 5 things we learned from the European Parliament election result in Finland

You didn’t need to be an expert in Finnish politics to read the body language when the advance voting results were announced at 20:00 Sunday night.

There were jubilant scenes at the Left Alliance event, with party leaders jumping up and down, hugging each other. Meanwhile, at the Finns Party event a sombre-looking Riikka Purra faced the television cameras alone.

A far-right wave might have been predicted to engulf the rest of Europe, but in Finland, the tide receded.

Here’s five things we learned from the European Parliament election results:

1. Winners

It was an exceptional night for the Left Alliance who picked up two extra MEPs, meaning they’ll have three in total in Brussels, the second biggest Finnish party at the heart of Europe. Their talismanic leader Li Andersson also smashed the long-held record of the most votes won by a single politician, with more than 247,000 votes, and the party increased its share of the vote by almost 10.5% compared to the last election in 2019.

The down-side to victory is that the Left Alliance parliamentary group is losing three of its most accomplished politicians in Andersson, Merja Kyllönen, and Jussi Saramo and they don’t have a deep bench of experienced substitutes to take their place. So in the short term at least, a Brussels victory could well weaken their domestic parliamentary game.

2. Also winners

The National Coalition Party also picked up an extra MEP for four in total, and increased their share of the vote by 4% compared to 2019. In a slightly odd twist, Pekka Toveri and Aura Salla only became MPs a year ago but will now become MEPs - leaving the question of just how committed they were to domestic politics in spring last year... [insert thinking emoji here] Salla is already considered a Brussels insider from her previous career as a lobbyist for Meta.

Mika Aaltola wasn’t even a member of the National Coalition Party a few months ago when he ran as an independent in the presidential election, but he hastily jumped on board and has now become their biggest vote winner.

So there’s a degree of political inexperience for Kokoomus in their new Brussels team (inexperience which showed at times in Aaltola’s presidential campaigning). Speaking to reporters on Sunday evening, Aaltola said he felt ‘the touch of the people’, echoing comments former president Sauli Niinistö made about his first election win. Modest.

3. Losers

The far-right Finns Party had been predicted to pick up one or maybe two extra seats in this election but on the night their voters simply abandoned them and they’re down to a single MEP, losing more than 6% of their vote from five years ago. The Finns Party’s new Brussels representative is Sebastian Tynkkynen, a controversial Oulu politician who has several convictions for race or anti-Islam-related crimes (convictions he wears as a dubious badge of honour). This election was a personal disaster for party leader Riikka Purra looked dejected on television, quite a contrast to her usual firebrand appearances. Purra has become emboldened as arguably the most dominant voice in government over the last year, but now concedes that “government responsibility is heavy.”

4. Also Losers

The Greens are also among the other big losers of the night, dropping 4.7% of their vote and losing an MEP. To be frank, they were lucky not to lose two MEPs which is what most of the pre-vote polling had been indicating. Still, they’ve got a couple of experienced politicians in Brussels, including veteran MEP Ville Niinistö and now former party leader and ex-interior minister Maria Ohisalo too. I interviewed Ohisalo recently about her priorities at the European Parliament, and you can read what she said here:

The Christian Democract-Liike Nyt alliance amounted to a pile of nothing on election night, with the duo failing to pick up a seat in Brussels (although the Christian Democrats more or less maintained their share of the votes).

5. Just happy not to screw it up

Other parties will be heaving a sigh of relief that they didn’t screw the election up - and the most relieved of all will be the Swedish People’s Party. Leader Anna-Maja Henriksson saved her party’s skin by raking in a huge number of personal votes, otherwise they had been predicted to be shut out of Brussels altogether. Henriksson will no doubt be very happy to escape to Europe given the domestic woes of her party.

The Social Democrats have never really translated domestic popularity into European Parliament success and even a star appearance by former PM Sanna Marin to wow the crowds at Narinkkatori on the eve of the vote couldn’t land them an extra MEP - although they held their share of the vote and actually increased it by a tiny 0.2% compared to 2019.

And Keskusta too will be happy to have kept their two MEPs, although they did lose almost 2% of the vote compared to the last election, part of a long-term decline in support for the once-dominant Centre Party.

Random observations

Four out of five party leaders from Finland’s first all-female government coalition are now MEPs: Li Andersson, Katri Kulmuni (Centre), Anna-Maja Henriksson and Maria Ohisalo.

Li Andersson got more personal votes than the Finns Party, Liike Nyt and the Christian Democrats combined.

Voter turnout was 42.4% which is down slightly, 0.3 percentage points from 2019.

There’s lots of parliamentary change ahead: the Left Alliance, Swedish People’s Party and Centre Party are about to choose new leaders.

Can’t get enough of elections in Finland? Mark your calendar! The next regional and municipal elections are taking place on 13 April 2025.