Largest Finnish party keep populists out of coalition talks
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Finland's center-left Social Democratic Party which narrowly won last month's general election says it is having talks with four centrist and left-leaning parties to form a coalition government but not the populists.
Antti Rinne, the leader of what became Finland's largest party by an extremely narrow margin, said Wednesday that a combination including the Center Party, the Greens, the Left Alliance and the Swedish People's Party of Finland "is the most stable composition for building a majority government.
Together, the five parties combined have 117 of the 200 seats in Finland's parliament. Majority is 101 lawmakers in the Eduskunta assembly.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}In the April 14 vote, the euroskeptic, anti-immigration Finns Party secured 17.5% support — 0.2 % less than the Social Democrats.