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Centre Party wins parliamentary elections in Finland

Juha Sipilä is the winner of Finland's parliamentary elections in 2015.

The results of Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Finland show a clear, expected win by the opposition Centre Party. The party’s leader, 53-year-old millionaire Juha Sipilä from Oulu in northern Finland is poised to succeed Alexander Stubb as Finland’s next prime minister.

Location

But first Sipilä will face difficult talks over forming a new coalition government, as the three other main parties – the conservative National Coalition Party, the populist Finns Party and the Social Democrats – finished with only narrow margins between them. 

The main task of Finland’s new government will be to reverse a deep economic slump that has drained Finland’s public finances and sent unemployment higher. 

The Centre Party received 21.1 percent of all the votes, and is slated to take 49 seats, up from its current count of 35, in Finland’s 200-seat parliament.

Juha Sipilä and the Center Party have largest support in the northernmost regions of Finland. In the two northernmost electoral districts of Oulu (which includes Kainuu) and Lapland, the Centre Party got 42.7 and 43.0 percent, respectively, according to the Ministry of Justice’s web site.

Sipilä received 30,733 votes in his home electoral district of Oulu. This was the most votes any single candidate in this election had. On the next places came Timo soini from the Finns Party with 29.441 votes and the National Coalition Party’s Alexander Stubb with 27.003 votes. They both come from the large Uusimaa electoral district near Helsinki, where twice as many people voted as in Oulu.

Juha Sipilä was elected to the Parliament of Finland in 2011 from the Oulu electoral district. He had no experience in party politics before being elected. In May 2012 the party congress elected him as chairman of the Centre Party. 

The overall voter turnout in the 2015 parliamentary election was 70.1 percent. In the two northernmost electoral districts of Oulu and Lapland, it was 68.1 and 69.1, respectively.

The official election result will be confirmed after a recount on Wednesday April 22nd in the evening, the parliament’s web site reads.