It was on Monday that one of the five government parties, the Center Party, announced that they no longer have confidence in Social Democratic Prime Minister Antti Rinne. According to Center's Antti Kurvinen, the party has announced three times that they no longer have confidence in him, Svenska Yle writes.

On Tuesday morning, the SDP and Center's parliamentary groups met and at 12.30 the President's Office announced that "Prime Minister Antti Rinne will submit the resignation request of the Prime Minister to the President of the Republic Sauli Niinistö today, December 3, 2019".

If Rinne had not announced himself that he would resign, an interpellation debate would be held in Parliament during Tuesday afternoon.

The responsible minister resigned

The political crisis in Finland stems from a labor dispute at the Finnish post office Posti. 700 package sorters were transferred to a subsidiary with another collective agreement where some of them received lower salaries. The postal strike came to an end on Wednesday last week when the union union PAU and employer Palta finally agreed after two weeks.

Responsible Minister Sirpa Paatero (SDP) resigned last week. She had defended the mail handling of the package sorters. Rinne, on the other hand, has been accused of lying about the issue in Parliament, among other things. Rinne himself has criticized Posti, saying that the state company acted in violation of government directives, which the company's management refused.

Marin: Prepared to shoulder the role

A likely candidate to take over the Prime Minister according to Finnish media is SDP's Vice President and Minister of Communications Sanna Marin. Marin says she is prepared to shoulder the responsibilities of prime minister, if it becomes relevant, HBL writes.