Populist, anti-EU surge does not materialize in Finland

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HELSINKI, May 26 (Xinhua) -- No major increase in the votes for the anti-EU populist Finns Party was seen in the European Parliament election in Finland on Sunday, whereas the pro-EU Greens got more support.

According to a prognosis from the national broadcaster Yle, the conservative National Coalition won 20.4 percent of the votes, the largest among all parties, and would retain its three seats.

The Green League came the second with 15.4 percent of votes, and made the proportionally largest gains as it increased their MEPs to two.

The Social Democrats, currently the largest party in Finnish Parliament, retained two MEPs. The populist Finns Party was the fourth with 14.3 percent of the votes and got two positions as well.

The Center Party, the leading party in the previous Finnish government, lost one of their seats and got two. The Left Alliance and the Swedish Peoples Party both retained their one-MEP positions.

Finland has totally 13 reserved positions in the European Parliament. Finland would get a seat more if the UK leaves the European Union. It was not clear who would get the additional seat.

Sami Borg, professor of politology at the Tampere University, said on national broadcaster Yle that the populists were not able to mobilize their backers. Their share of votes was only slightly more than in the 2014 election.

Borg said the rise of the Greens in Finland matched the trend in the rest of Europe.

The turnout was 42.7 percent, a slight increase than previous election.

Commenting on the low turnout, Elina Kestila-Kekkonen, professor of Turku University, said the European identity in Finland is not so large that voting in the European Parliament election would be comparable to the national parliamentary election. Enditem

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