Finnish Opposition Social Democrats Win Local, County Elections
Finland's opposition Social Democrats won the most votes in municipal and county elections that were widely seen as channeling voter discontent against the pro-business government.
The Social Democrats had 23% of the ballots for local councils, a gain of 5.3 percentage points, with Prime Minister Petteri Orpo's National Coalition coming second with 21.9%, according to preliminary results published by the Justice Ministry on Monday. Opposition Center Party was third with 16.4% of votes, and the ruling coalition's junior partner the Finns Party slumped 6.8 percentage points to 7.6% compared with the election in 2021.
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