Opposition Wins Finnish Election

Finland's opposition Center Party won Sunday's parliamentary election, putting its leader Anneli Jaeaetteenmaeki in pole position to become the country's first woman prime minister.

"It's fantastic!" Jaeaetteenmaeki told AFP after the election
result was known.

"Now our work starts. Such support from the people requires us to work for the people and make everyday day life for the Finns better," she added.

In the end, fewer than 7,000 votes separated the winner from the loser, and observers called the outcome the closest result in Finnish election history.

"The race has been pretty close, I think (Prime Minister Paavo) Lipponen and Jaeaetteenmaeki tried to make the election a fight between the opposition and the government, like in a two party system," Tumo Martikainen, a leading political commentator, said.

As a consequence, the smaller parties suffered from the fight between the two largest parties.

According to the final result, the Centre Party won with 24.8
percent of the vote, 2.4 percentage points more than in the 1999 election, giving it 55 seats in the 200-seat parliament.

Lipponen's Social Democrats lost, getting 24.5 percent, 1.6
points more than in 1999, according to the estimate, translating into 53 seats.

As the Center Party won most seats, the parliament is excepted to ask Jaeaettenmaeki next week to form a government, most likely a conservative coalition encompassing the National Coalition Party, the liberal Swedish People's Party and the Christian Democrats, with
110 seats in total.

"The Center Party has now the upper hand, and it would be
logical that it would try to form a conservative government,"
Martikainen pointed out.

Alternatively, the Greens might be a minor coalition partner,
observers said.

However, observers would not rule out the possibility of the
Centre Party forming a coalition with Lipponen's Social Democrats.

Jaeaetteenmaeki herself declined to comment on whom she would prefer having in her coalition cabinet.

"Now I want to have a little break, and then the real negotiations can start next week," she said.

A veteran parliamentarian for the Center Party, the last six
months as its chairman, she said she had been working for 16 years to become the Nordic country's first female prime minister.

Finland has already had a woman president for three years, but with limited powers.

The Conservative National Coalition Party -- a partner in
Lipponen's four-party left-right coalition -- became the election's biggest losers, dropping six seats to 40, constituting a 2.5 percentage-point drop in support to 18.5 percent.

The smaller coalition partners the Left Alliance and the Liberal Swedish Party both showed slides of less than a percentage point in popularity.

The Greens, the second-largest opposition party, increased its following by 0.7 percentage points, getting 8.0 percent of the votes, or an estimated 14 seats in parliament.

The Christian Democrats increased their following by 1.2
percentage points, garnering 5.3 percent of the votes, giving them seven seats.