Eleições na Finlândia: a ascensão dos nacionalistas eurocépticos

The cosy consensus of Finnish parliamentary politics was shattered yesterday, when the True Finns, a populist Eurosceptic party, emerged from near-obscurity to take third place in a closely run general election. The result will be carefully noted by European leaders as efforts continue to restore confidence in the euro.
The leader of the True Finns, Timo Soini (pictured), has pledged to veto future aid packages for struggling euro-zone countries, such as Portugal. (In an unfortunate irony of timing, Portugal's bail-out talks with European and IMF officials began earlier today.) But although the election catapulted the True Finns from just five seats to 39 in the 200-member parliament, their participation in the next government remains uncertain.
The National Coalition Party (NCP), a pro-EU member of the outgoing coalition, lost six seats but still emerged as the largest party. It will now lead negotiations on the composition of the new government. These talks will be fraught with difficulty. “Coalition talks are always a bit complicated in Finland, and this time it will be more difficult than usual,” says Pasi Saukkonen, a political scientist at Helsinki University.
Mari Kiviniemi, the prime minister, said her Centre Party would return to opposition after it lost 16 seats. This means that the NCP will likely seek to form a government with the opposition Social Democrats (SDP), which came second, with 42 seats. The pair would need to recruit at least one other party to gain it a majority. (Minority governments, although common in other Nordic countries, are frowned on in Finland and would only be considered as a last resort.) [...]

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