Not hiding his satisfaction after an intense campaign, Matti Vanhanen said yesterday “in the Olympics we would have won Gold.”

ELDR’s other member party in Finland, the Swedish People's Party, representing Finland's Swedish-speaking minority, saw its number of MPs increase in this election compared to the previous one.

Matti Vanhanen will now lead informal coalition talks. With a proportional representation electoral system, Finland is prone to forming a coalition government, usually composed of a combination of two of its three major parties – Centre Party, Social Democrats and the Conservative National Coalition Party – and one or two smaller parties. The Finnish parliament is unicameral and comprises 200 representatives elected every four years. The election fell on the 100th anniversary of Finland's first Parliamentary vote, which was the first worldwide to give women the right to run for office.

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For more information, please contact ELDR Press officer Myriam Cornillet (mcornillet@eldr.org), 00 32 2 237 01 43 or 00 32 485 99 40 56.


Note to the editor:
The European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, aisbl (ELDR Party) brings together 50 political parties with common liberal, democratic and reform ideals and is the forum for member parties to develop a co-ordinated policy.