The 36th Eduskunta follows the parliamentary election held on 17 April 2011. There are 200 MPs in the parliament. The current government is 72nd in order, as there have been on average two governments per parliament.
The average age of elected MPs was 48. The youngest MP is Olli Immonen, 25 at the time of the election, and the oldest MP is Kauko Tuupainen, 70 at the time of the election – both are True Finns MPs.
The Parliament has 115 male MPs and 85 female MPs. Of the parties the True Finns have the highest portion of male MPs in their ranks (72%), while the Social Democratic Party has the highest portion of female MPs (64%).
As the leader of the largest party Jyrki Katainen of the NCP began the negotiations to form a new coalition government. Katainen said that the result of the election supports a coalition based on the three largest parties, i.e. the National Coalition Party, the Social Democratic Party and the True Finns. The most problematic question was believed to be the EU bailout policy, where the True Finns most differ from the other parties.
Formal negotiations were scheduled to start after Easter on 24 April. The National Coalition Party's Alexander Stubb said that a government could be formed by 9 May, though he admitted that it was an optimistic timetable. This was despite EU worries about what effect a new government could have on the bailout. The Kiviniemi government submitted its resignation on 29 April, though it would continue to serve as a caretaker government until a new one was formed.
If the True Finns could not agree to a common platform to provide suitable ministers from the party's elected representatives list, Soini hinted to Yle the possibility of choosing ministers from what he ambigously called his party's "background groups". Although the True Finns said they were ready to enter the negotiations on the formation of a new government, conflicting reports emerged of the True Finns saying that they cannot "in good conscience" support the Portuguese rescue package or the creation of a permanent bailout fund by the EU and that they had toned down criticism of the package saying it may be in the interests of Finland. However, the SDP also wanted the rules for the international financial system to be reformed. The NCP's Alexander Stubb said that "It will be very difficult to keep a party with 39 seats out of government. If we can find compromises, we can have the True Finns in government." Amidst ongoing talks Soini backtracked on previous inferences that he would be willing to set aside the issue of the Portugal bailout saying "We can’t vote for this (bailout of Portugal) and we won’t...If Finland can find a majority that can push this through and a government is formed after that, then that will be a different situation." Bloomberg suggested that the True Finns were still taking the government formation talks "seriously" and hoped to be a part of the next government once differences over the Portuguese bailout had been set aside. This was despite Katainen's pledge not to form a government with parties that opposed the bailout measures.