Analysis: What comes next as Finland's right-wing sweeps Sanna Marin from office?

The right-wing conservative National Coalition Party, known locally as Kokoomus, has swept to victory in the Finnish general elections, winning 48 seats in the 200-seat parliament. 

The far-right populist Finns Party came second in Sunday's vote with 46 seats while Sanna Marin's left-wing Social Democrats came third with 43 seats: but the number of seats can be deceiving, when there is less than one percentage point separating the top three parties. 

All three parties actually gained seats compared to the 2019 election but the result means Marin, who became the world's youngest head of government when she took the role, will no longer be prime minister, and at this stage it looks like her party could well be shut out of government completely. 

So what are some of the key takeaways from this election so far? 

Kokoomus now has a values choice to make. Their most likely scenario would be to start preliminary talks to form a government with the second-place Finns Party in a so-called Blue-Black coalition. That would pull Finland much further to the right politically than the country has been before: (yes, the Finns Party were in government from 2015-2017 but it was a much less right-wing, and much less 'Trumpian' Finns Party at that time, which ended up splintering anyway.) 

And Kokoomus will have to weigh up whether the country takes a reputational hit by having a far-right populist party in government, where several of the most popular figures have convictions for race-related offences (which, incidentally, they wear like a badge of honour). 

Kokoomus might, or might not, be able to find enough common ground with the Finns Party (and a few others too: Christian Democrats, Liike Nyt, possibly the Centre Party or perhaps a little