Entrepreneur sets out to navigate Finland's political landscape

Finland's voters have pinned their hopes on a self-made millionaire to shake up the politics of a country mired in its deepest economic slump for decades.

Juha Sipila, prime minister-elect, entered politics just four years ago - and has led the Centre party only since 2012 - after a quarter of a century spent founding and running companies in the telecoms and bioenergy sectors. He aims to apply his business know-how, and a can-do approach that has seen him build his own house and adapt his car to run on wood gas, to hauling the country out of a three-year recession.

"The first action is to change the management," he told the Financial Times, shortly before Sunday's vote.

In many ways he seems the antithesis of Alex Stubb, the man he will replace as prime minister. The flamboyant Mr Stubb is a big user of Twitter, where he regales followers with his cycling and running exploits. Mr Sipila, in contrast, has taken a much more low-key approach, emphasising his seriousness and dependability.

He knows and likes Mr Stubb, he says. "But maybe I am a more practical leader, and I want to concentrate . . . only on problem-solving."

The new premier recalls once showing his US boss the wooden house he built. "[He] asked: 'Don't you have any carpenters in Finland?' It opened my eyes that this is not typical to do."

This practical approach is something Finns are ardently seeking. Mr Stubb's government has been widely derided for achieving relatively little at a time of economic crisis, with big reforms of the healthcare system and municipalities stalled or abandoned.

Mr Sipila is adamant he will do better, with an urgent focus on boosting Finland's competitiveness. "We need to concentrate on a few things, big things. We need to get things done, and implemented. The implementation of reforms has been very poor," he told the FT.

His first challenge will be handling coalition negotiations. Mr Sipila is keen to impose business discipline on government, slimming the cabinet to enable it to be run like a management board. He also wants any parties joining the government to sign up to his main pledges, in large part to create "the ideological glue" that Mr Stubb has acknowledged was missing from his right-left coalition.

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"Yes, he's a successful businessman, but can he be a successful prime minister? It's a different job and, with Finland in such dire straits, really not an easy one," says one Finnish executive, pointing to the struggles of a similar political neophyte, former union leader Stefan Lofven, minister of neighbouring Sweden.

But Centre party officials note Mr Sipila has a number of politically savvy advisers. They include former prime ministers Esko Aho and Matti Vanhanen, while Olli Rehn, a former EU commissioner, is tipped for a senior ministerial role.

Mr Sipila, speaking before Sunday's vote, sought to emphasise his lack of political experience as an advantage. "I'm not very good in political games," he said. "I am more or less a practical problem-solver, and I think maybe the time is right for this kind of politics, at least here in Finland. Our problems are really big at the moment."

One challenge for the new prime minister is that the potential measures for tackling those problems are unlikely to help the economy immediately. Reform of the labour market and healthcare system - widely seen as the two main priorities - are likely to hurt growth in the short term, a senior Centre party official conceded. Billions of euros of budget cuts have also been pledged in an attempt to stop government debt rising even more above the EU target of 60 per cent of GDP.

A potential third bailout for Greece could also complicate issues. The True Finns rejected the chance to join the last government because of their objections to the second Greek bailout. But Mr Soini has recently toned down his comments as he positioned his party for power. Mr Sipila, in any case, has said he is "quite hardline" on Greece too.

Most difficult of all, perhaps, will be to overcome the mood of pessimism prevailing in Finland. At a recent dinner attended by 10 senior business executives from banks, manufacturers and retailers, not one thought Finland's situation would improve under a new government. Even Mr Sipila, speaking after winning the election, conceded: "It will take 10 years to get Finland back into shape."

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