By Juhana Rossi
HELSINKI--Finnish voters looks likely to oust their center-right
Prime Minister Alexander Stubb at elections on Sunday and back his
centrist rival Juha Sipila to reverse a deep economic slump which
has drained public finances and sent unemployment higher.
An opinion poll by public broadcaster Yle showed 24% support for
front-runner Mr. Sipila's Centre Party giving it a comfortable
seven percentage point lead over Mr. Stubb's National Coalition
Party.
The nationalist Finns Party and left-leaning Social Democrats
could also take second place, according to the poll.
"We need change. Something has to be done about the economy,"
said Maija-Liisa Vuento-Lammi, a business manager, in a Helsinki
square where party activists were canvassing busily on Friday
afternoon.
Finland is trying to recover from a three-year-long recession.
The Nordic country's jobless rate has risen to 13.4%, according to
a broad measure of unemployment used by the government, as mainstay
industries such as handset making and paper have declined sharply.
The outcome of the election will go some way toward deciding how
the country will go about fixing that.
The National Coalition Party has signaled the most willingness
to push through spending cuts to mend Finland's economy while the
other three major parties have been more cautious about advocating
austerity judging that their voter base would suffer more from
cutbacks in government spending.
The Centre Party is committed to curb the public deficit but
more slowly than in the four years suggested by experts at the
Ministry of Finance.
"Living with borrowed money needs to be stopped in six years,"
Mr. Sipila told The Wall Street Journal.
The issue of relations with neighboring Russia has figured in
the background to the election debate without becoming a decisive
issue. Finland has extensive trade links with Russia and has sought
to preserve them while signing off on European Union sanctions
against Moscow.
Finland isn't a NATO member and none of the parties competing
for power have made changing that an election issue.
Mr. Stubb has struggled for traction since taking over as leader
last year from Jyrki Katainen who left to join the European
Commission.
Last fall Mr. Stubb survived a no-confidence vote after the
Finns Party challenged him over his running of the economy in the
wake of a credit rating downgrade by Standard & Poor's.
Meanwhile Mr. Sipila has been gaining ground and his party has
led opinion polls for six months.
Before entering politics, Mr. Sipila was an entrepreneur who
became a millionaire after he sold his network technology company
in 1996.
Mr. Sipila was first elected to parliament in 2011 at the same
time as his party suffered a defeat which pushed it into
opposition. He became the party leader in 2012.
Before the financial crisis hit in 2009, Finland's combination
of steady economic growth and a comprehensive welfare system was
widely admired with national champions Nokia adding a burnish to
the country's reputation. That has now faded.
"The Nokia-driven mobile phone making has collapsed, graphic
paper production is withering away, and exports to Russia have
dropped due to the Ukraine crisis," said Sixten Korkman, a
professor of economics at the Aalto University.
Recurring budget deficits have pushed Finland's ratio of public
debt to economic output from 32.7% in 2008 to 59.3% in 2014.
All parties broadly agree about the gravity of Finland's
problems, but they have been rather vague in outlining their plans
on how they should be remedied, the academic Mr. Korkman said.
Focus will be on whether the Finns Party, which is critical of
the European Union in its current form, will be included in
government this time.
They were excluded after the last election despite a strong
result after refusing to compromise on its refusal to accept a
second loan program for Greece.
If the Finns finish second, the most probable combination for a
coalition government could be the Center Party, the Finns, and the
Social Democrats, said Erkka Railo, a political scientist at the
University of Turku.
Finns leader since 1997, 52-year-old Timo Soini, is now eager to
find a way to take his party into government, he said.
"I think he is willing to make concessions to do so," Mr. Railo
added.
Write to Juhana Rossi at juhana.rossi@wsj.com
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