Finnish PM seeks new coalition after ousting populists

Helsinki: Finland's Prime Minister was to tender his coalition government's resignation on Tuesday after ousting a populist, anti-immigration and eurosceptic party whose new leader has been convicted of hate speech.

Prime Minister Juha Sipila, who has headed a coalition made up of his Centre Party, the conservative National Coalition and the Finns Party since May 2015, announced Monday he wanted to end to the coalition after the Finns elected Jussi Halla-aho as party leader, saying a collaboration was impossible.

Halla-aho, 46, replaces moderate Timo Soini, who has led the party for 20 years. Sipila was scheduled to meet President Sauli Niinisto on Tuesday at 1200 GMT to formally submit his government's resignation. 

The president is expected to give Sipila a mandate to form a new coalition, enabling him to govern until the end of the legislature in 2019.

The Swedish People's Party, representing the Swedish-speaking minority, and the Christian Democrats have said they are willing to hold talks aimed at joining the government, while the left-wing opposition the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Left have insisted that new elections be called. Sipila appears to be opposed to a vote.  

"The goal is to have a viable government as soon as possible in line with the current government program," daily Helsingin Sanomat quoted him as saying. The head of the conservative party, Finance Minister Petteri Orpo, said the future government must be founded on the same principles as the current one. 

"We have had a turn of events in Finland. It would be a great pity if the political line would change," he said. After Halla-aho's election on Saturday, the conservatives swiftly rejected any cooperation with the Finns Party. "Undeniable human dignity is the foundation of Western democracy," Orpo said on Monday.

The three coalition party leaders met on Monday, after which it was abundantly clear they would not be able to work together, especially on the subject of immigration.  "All decisions are based on values, but compromises are needed when there are three parties in the government.

The elastic couldn't be stretched any further to accomodate Halla-aho," Sipila said late Monday in an appearance on public broadcaster YLE.

"The new leadership's view of justice, equality, human rights and so on are not the same as the Centre Party's."  Defense and European affairs were other problematic areas, he said. Hallo-aho is expected to get what he has appeared to want all along: to return his party to opposition.

Participating in the three-party coalition has come at a heavy price for the Finns Party. Its support has almost halved from 17.7 percent in the May 2015 general election to 9.0 percent in a poll published Thursday by public broadcaster YLE.

A member of the European Parliament, Halla-aho has said he wants to steer the party further to the right and push for tougher immigration policies. Halla-aho has seen his star rise in recent years, in part because of his explicit writings against immigration and Islam.  

In 2012, Finland's highest court upheld a conviction and fines against him for inciting ethnic hatred and blasphemy in a 2008 blog post where he criticised Islam and made offensive remarks about Somalis.

Earlier this year, he demanded that the European Commission penalise civic organisations which rescue migrants from drowning when their ships founder in the Mediterranean. Halla-aho is a father of five and a former lecturer in media eval languages.