Women make up 42 per cent of new Finnish parliament

Helsinki - Finland's new parliament strengthened its position as one of the most gender-equal assemblies in the world after weekend elections, with the number of women MPs rising from 37.7 to 42 per cent.

A total of 84 women were elected to the 200-seat Eduskunta, up from 75 in the previous legislature.

Finland thereby exceeded the Council of Europe target of 40 per cent women in parliament. Statistics published by the organisation in March showed that only Sweden met the goal, with 46 per cent.

Women candidates fared better however than their male counterparts in Finland's election. Of the 2,004 candidates, 1,205 were men and 799 women, meaning women represented 39 per cent of candidates but won 42 per cent of seats.

The Christian Democrats and Centre Party had the weakest proportion of women candidates, with 39.4 and 43.8 per cent respectively. That contrasted with 52.5 per cent of candidates for the Greens were women and 49.1 per cent for the Social Democrats.

Fifty-two per cent of registered voters were women.

The outgoing centre-left government, headed by Centre Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, consisted of 10 men and eight women.

Finland has had a woman president, Tarja Halonen, since 2000. She was re-elected to a second six-year term in 2006.

The Centre Party remained the biggest formation in Sunday's election, but is expected to switch to a centre-right alliance following a stinging setback for its government ally the Social Democrats and a strong showing by the opposition conservatives.

Agence France Presse

I bet the place has been fitted with lots of extra mirrors.