Tension between Conservatives, Centrists erupts in Finnish coalition gov't

The Finnish coalition government faced a surprising crisis on Thursday as the three parties could not agree on the outline of a long processed health and social services reform.

Prime Minister Juha Sipila said if common ground could not be found by Friday he would "go to the President" for solution. The expression means that a new government would have to be formed.

Sipila explicitly said new elections "would be a bad alternative." The Finnish tradition of coalition governments does not require new elections for a mid-term change.

The disagreement boiled down on the issue of how many administrative regions for national health services there should be. The prime minister's Centre Party insisted on 18 regions but the Conservatives considered 12 as the maximum. The Finns Party would accept the prime minister's line.

Local analysts believed that the government parties would reach a compromise on the issue though.

Analyzing the situation, Lauri Karvonen, a professor of politology at the Swedish language university in Turku, Abo Akademi, said on national broadcaster Yle that the Conservatives have been able to influence the economic policies of the coalition so far and this has created tension on the Centre Party floor. Regional policies have been essential to the Centre Party and the party's leadership could not compromise on the issue.

The Conservatives had suggested more time be given until Saturday so that the party council could discuss the matter, but the prime minister did not agree.

The internal tensions of the ruling coalition so far have been mainly associated with the difficulties of the populist Finns Party in accepting joint policies, and the emerging situation is the first open major rift between the Centrists and the Conservatives. Endit