While far-right parties took a clear lead, the Nordic countries did not follow
As far-right parties shake up Europe, left-wing and green parties made gains across the Nordics in Sunday’s European elections, while far-right parties saw their support slip.
Finland made the big surprise of the night with the Socialist Left Alliance garnering 17.3% of the vote, with over 99% counted marking an increase of 10.4 percentage points compared to the 2019 election.
“I feel like I’m in some kind of shock. I couldn’t be happier,” Left Alliance party leader Lee Anderson told YLE television.
The result meant his party secured three of Finland’s 15 seats in the European Parliament, up from the one it held in the previous election.
Prime Minister Petri Orpo’s National Coalition Party still won the most votes with 24.7%, giving it four seats.
Meanwhile, the far-right Finns Party, which is part of Orpo’s coalition government, saw its support plummet, winning just 7.6% of the vote, a drop of 6.2 percentage points – leaving them with just one seat instead of two.
“This is a wake-up call for our party. Now we have to activate our EU policies more,” Sebastian Tinkkinen, who will be the Finns Party’s sole representative in the EU parliament, told YLE.
The same time, in Sweden, the Green Party emerged as the country’s third largest with 13.8% of the vote, an increase of 2.3 percentage points compared to the 2019 election, while the Left Party also increased by 4.2 percentage points to 11% .
The anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, who support Ulf Kristersson’s government and were expected to win votes and pass Kristersson’s conservative party, ended up losing ground in an election for the first time in the party’s history. He won 13.2% of the vote, down 2.1 percentage points from the 2019 election — with more than 90% of the vote counted.
In Denmark, the Socialist People’s Party became the largest party with 17.4%, up 4.2 percentage points compared to the 2019 result — with over 99% of votes counted. The ruling Social Democrats lost 5.9 percentage points and won 15.6% of the vote.
Source :Skai
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