Finland election: tight race has Marin’s SDP polling behind far right

Long coalition talks may follow Sunday, with conservative NCP not ruling out deal with populist Finns

Four years after she became the world’s youngest prime minister, Finland’s Sanna Marin faces a battle to keep her job on Sunday in an unpredictable election so tight that it could be won by any of the country’s three main parties.

Marin, now 37, took the reins of the Social Democratic party (SDP) – and the Finnish premiership – in 2019 and has since piloted the traditionally non-aligned Nordic country through the Covid pandemic and to the brink of Nato membership.