Success of the nationalist right in Finnish Elections

The True Finns, a staunchly anti-EU and anti-immigration party saw their support skyrocket, from five seats in the last election to 39 on the back of almost a fifth of the country's voters.
On a 70 percent turnout, up from 68 percent in the 2007 vote, the conservative National Coalition Party drew the largest number of votes, with 20.4 percent. This endorsement gives them the most seats in the chamber, on 44, although the party is down six seats on the last election.
The conservatives, whose chief, the current finance minister Jyrki Katainen, will lead the next government, will have to choose between the True Finns and the second-place Social Democrats. The centre-left Social Democrats also lost three seats, taking them down to 42 mandates, although analysts describe the vote as a defensive success for the party, with the vote up on recent surveys. The Social Democrats had warmed to the growing anti-EU mood and criticised the recently announced EU-IMF bail-out of Portugal from the right.
The biggest party in the last election, the liberal Centre Party of Prime Minister Mari Kiviniemi was the biggest loser of the night, shedding 16 seats, a result that has pushed them into fourth place.
With the second and third biggest parties sharply critical of EU bail-outs of countries viewed by voters as feckless and indigent, the election puts the recent rescue of Portugal in the balance.
Euobserver