Finnish Government Faces Rocky Ride as Populists' Support Drops

  • The Finns party backing slumps in countrywide local elections
  • Results could saw discord in ruling three-party coalition
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Finnish voters have shunned populists. Doing so may have just caused their government a headache.

Support for the euro-skeptic The Finns, a junior partner in Prime Minister Juha Sipila’s three-party ruling coalition, plummeted in local elections held on Sunday across the country’s 295 municipalities. The vote, a midterm report for the government two years before the next general election, brought the biggest like-for-like electoral drop the party has ever seen.