Finnish Center stays in power
Ruling Center party just barely beats opposition in elections. Israeli candidate fails to receive enough votes to get him into parliament
Finnish opposition conservatives made strong gains in a general election on Sunday, coming a close second to the ruling Center Party and staking a claim to a place in a new coalition government.
The centre-right National Coalition Party won 50 seats in the 200-member parliament - one fewer than the Center Party, but ahead of the 45 of the Social Democrats (SDP), the current partners in the cabinet, preliminary results showed.
The ballot, marking 100 years of elections in Finland, gives Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen the right to form a new four-year coalition.
"In an election it's always easy to win from the opposition, but the most difficult thing is to renew one's victory. The result is clear. We are number 1 in votes and number 1 in seats," he told cheering supporters at a Helsinki hotel.
National Coalition leader Jyrki Katainen, whose party came ahead of the SDP for the first time, said it had won the right to join a new cabinet.
"The National Coalition has taken a landslide victory," he told reporters. "I think it would be very odd if we were not in the next government."
Full results showed the Center Party with 23.1 percent of the vote, the conservatives at 22.3 percent and SDP with 21.4.
Israeli angle
The Finnish elections also had an Israeli angle; Oren (Lasse) Oz, the son of an Israeli father and a Finnish mother, was in the running for a seat in parliament on behalf of the True Finns Party.
Although the party managed to increase its strength in parliament by 2.1 percent to 4 percent, Oz was 350 votes short of winning a seat. “I’m disappointed that I didn’t make it into parliament, but I’m pleased with the party’s strengthening,” he said.
“I spoke with the out party chairman, and he told me that I did a good job for the party, and asked me to continue,” Oz continued.
He also said there were no expectations of dramatic changes with regards to the new political situation in Finland.
Despite the disappointment, Oz was motivated to continue in his activities. He also said he had no current plans of returning to Israel.
“This is the first time I’ve been active in elections, and the results are a good starting point. I haven’t made any plans for the future yet, but you never know. Local elections are in a year, and we’ll see what happens,” he said.
News Agencies contributed to this article
