The Finnish election of 21 March 1999

The Finnish general election of 21 March 1999 made history. It was contested on the eve of Finland's first period as EU president and for the first time since independence in 1917 the post-election negotiations led to the return to power of precisely the same broad-based coalition of parties as comprised the outgoing government. Moreover, the gap between the three largest parties, the Social Democrats, Centre and Conservatives, at less than two percentage points, was the narrowest for over 40 years, the turnout the lowest since the 1930s and the campaign one of the dullest on record. Yet, ironically, the result proved one of the most exciting in recent years with the Social Democrats overtaking the Centre late into the night, albeit polling significantly less than they did four years earlier. Between 1995 and 1999 Finland was governed by a Social Democratled 'rainbow coalition' under Paavo Lipponen. The former Communist Leftist Alliance and Greens entered government for the first time, while the heart of the coalition was red-blue Social Democratic-Conservative cooperation. Of the Nordic countries, only Iceland has a comparable record of conservative (Independence Party)-social democratic coalitions. During the Lipponen's first term in office, an increasingly iVo&Za-dependent Finnish economy recovered from the deepest recession in its history and the increment on a tight fiscal policy was economic growth which averaged just under 5 per cent between 1995 and 1999. On 1 January 2000, moreover, Finland became the first and thus far only Nordic member of EMU. The leading coalition parties defended the government's economic record and pushed a 'steady as she goes' line. The leading opposition party, the Centre, claimed that income disparities had grown, social exclusion increased, problems of regional imbalance worsened and that the government had not halved unemployment (presently running at around 11 per cent) as it had promised to do. In fact, a largely tepid campaign focused mainly on personalities rather than policies and especially those of the

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