HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finland's opposition Centre Party looks set to win most seats in Sunday's general election, according to the latest opinion poll on Tuesday, which was in line with other recent surveys.
The Centre Party, led by Juha Sipila, would still need the support of other parties to form a government and that could take time as polls point to several different potential coalition combinations.
The survey by Helsingin Sanomat newspaper showed The Centre Party, which has support from both the urban middle class and rural conservatives with eurosceptic tendencies, would win around 23 percent of the vote.
The main parties in the current coalition, the centre-right National Coalition and centre-left Social Democrats, would both win 17 percent, the poll showed.
Not far behind, the Eurosceptic Finns Party had about 16 percent support, while 39 percent of Finns polled were undecided.
"It has been clear for a long time that Centre will become the biggest party," said Erkka Railo, political analyst at University of Turku.
"But any of the following three (National Coalition, Social Democrats and The Finns) could be the second-biggest, and it looks like the actual vote result will open possibilities for several coalition combinations. That means that the government talks will be difficult and they will take time."
Centre leader Juha Sipila told Reuters in an interview that he was open to cooperating with any other party. He has outlined plans to cut public spending to curb rising debt, while protecting jobs in rural Finland with a new state fund.
The current fractious left-right government, led by Prime Minister Alexander Stubb's National Coalition party, is widely seen as Finland's least successful coalition ever after it failed to push through plans to reform health care and local government budgets, and cancelled some spending cuts.
Stubb has been premier for less than a year after his predecessor Jyrki Katainen resigned to take a senior EU post.