Timo Soini

Timo Juhani Soini (born May 30, 1962) is a Finnish politician, and co-founder and current leader of the True Finns party. Since 2009, he has been a member of the European Parliament. Well-known as an EU-sceptic populist, he was elected a member of the Espoo city council in 2000 and the Parliament of Finland in 2003. In the 2009 European Parliament election he won a seat in the European Parliament with Finland's highest personal vote share (nearly 10% of all votes), becoming the first True Finn in the European Parliament.In the 2011 parliamentary election his party reached the outstanding 19%.

True Finns obtained 39 seats in the 2011 election, making them the third largest party. Soini received 43 212 personal votes, the highest amount of all of the candidates. Soini managed to raise the popularity of the party from 4.1% to 19.0% in four years. Helsingin Sanomat reviewed in an editorial that Soini "rewrote the electoral history books". According to BBC, behind Soini's success was "brain, wit and charisma". A political analyst and university professor pointed to Soini's oratory skills and ability to appeal to common people and make complicated things look easy. The election result was also referred to as "shocking" and "exceptional"