Prime Minister Petteri Orpo was unanimously re-elected for another two-year term as leader of the National Coalition Party (NCP) on Saturday. He had no challenger for the post.
Nearly 1,400 NCP delegates are taking part in this weekend's party conference in Tampere.
Orpo, who has served as NCP leader since 2016, begins his fifth term in the post.
On Sunday, delegates elected the party's three vice chairs, with Defence Minister Antti Häkkänen and Minister of Municipalities and Regions Anna-Kaisa Ikonen re-elected for new terms, and Karoliina Partanen, a Member of Parliament from Kuopio, as a new vice-chair. The latter edged out Minister of Science and Culture Sari Multala for the post by the narrowest of possible margins.
In a recent Yle survey, NCP supporters gave Orpo high marks for his work as party chair, citing the party’s electoral winning streak in recent years. The NCP is the only major party never to have had a female leader.
Saarikko bows out...
On Saturday afternoon, the opposition Centre Party elected former defence minister Antti Kaikkonen as its new leader.
Advance polls suggested that Kaikkonen, had a significant edge over the only other candidate, Tuomas Kettunen, a second-term MP from Oulu.
Kaikkonen won by a vote of 1368-308.
Kaikkonen has been an MP representing Uusimaa since 2003. He was defence minister from 2019 until last summer. Before that he was president of the Centre youth organisation and chair of the Youth Foundation, which was embroiled in a campaign financing scandal. Kaikkonen was given a five-month suspended sentence for his role in the scheme.
The second day of the party conference in Jyväskylä began with an address by outgoing chair Annika Saarikko, in which she criticised the current government.
"This hard right-wing government now just offers endless talk about the economic collapse from its cabinet chambers," she asserted.
Never before in her lifetime "has the idea of a welfare society been scrapped so ideologically and thoroughly" in Finland, said Saarikko, who had led the party since 2020.
...and Henriksson, too
A junior government partner, the Swedish People's Party, also elects a new leader this weekend. Longtime chair and cabinet minister Anna-Maja Henriksson begins her first term as a member of the European Parliament later this month.
Henriksson and Saarikko were key figures in the female-dominated cabinet led by ex-PM Sanna Marin (SDP), whose term ended nearly a year ago, on June 20, 2023.
In Sunday's vote, three men are vying to take over from her as SPP chair and most likely as education minister as well.
4.05pm: Updated with Kaikkonen's victory.
11.44am: Updated with Kaikkonen's record.
1.42pm: Updated with NCP vice-chairs.
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