HELSINKI: Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin, who in 2019 became the world’s youngest premier at 34, will be facing a tough challenge in the parliamentary election on Sunday amid an ongoing recession and accusations that her government bloated public spending.
Marin, who has been featured on the covers of Vogue and Time Magazine, is globally considered a millennial role model for progressive new leaders.
But in her home country, she has been the subject of monotonous political scrutiny, criticised by the opposition for her centre-left coalition’s debt-financed spending and by the media for her partying at a time when Finland was suffering from Europe’s energy crisis.
Marin says it is imperative for economic growth to spend on education and health services. Her opponents, Petteri Orpo of the right-wing National Coalition Party and Riikka Purra of the nationalist Finns Party, are demanding fiscal austerity to restore government finances.
Opinion polls showed the three major parties neck and neck, with the National Coalition leading with 19.8% support, ahead of Marin’s Social Democrats and the Finns Party at 19.2% each.
Although Marin is highly popular at a personal level, it is not clear if it would benefit her party in winning the parliamentary vote. In 2019, the Social Democrats won very narrowly, with 17.7% of the vote.
Amid neighbouring Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Marin’s government ended decades of military non-alignment and applied for NATO membership, a move supported by almost all members of its parliament.
But both her challengers, who promise to put an end to a cycle of borrowing if they win, are of the view that Marin’s five-party coalition failed to rein in public finances.
Finland’s rising indebtedness
Finland’s indebtedness ranks 10th among the 20 euro zone nations, according to Eurostat, as the country’s public debt rose to 71% of GDP as of the third quarter of 2022, up from 65% when Marin assumed the prime minister office in late 2019, mainly due to spending to support businesses and households during the coronavirus pandemic and the affects of Ukraine war.
