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By Kati Pohjanpalo June 11 (Bloomberg) — Finland’s ruling Center Party, trying to recover from a two-year campaign funding scandal, may pick a 41-year-old economist to become the next prime minister as it seeks to shore up support before next year’s elections. Mari Kiviniemi , the youngest of four candidates, leads opinion polls as the party prepares to elect a new chairman. Victory in the June 12 poll of party members would put Kiviniemi in line to become the country’s premier when Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen , 54, steps down this month. Economy Minister Mauri Pekkarinen , 62, was in second place in two recent polls. “The election debate might focus too much on Vanhanen if he continued as leader,” said Ville Pitkaenen, a political scientist at the University of Turku. “Now the Center Party can go into the elections with a clean slate.” Vanhanen, who has endured criticism about campaign donations from businessmen as well as revelations about his personal life by an ex-girlfriend, has said he is leaving office to undergo an operation on his leg. The next prime minister will be faced with an economy that shrank 7.8 percent last year, the most since the 1918 civil war, a budget gap breaching the European Union’s 3 percent rule and a shrinking workforce. Kiviniemi, the minister for municipalities, said she will “show Finland a way out of the recession, a way that leaves no one by the roadside.” Increasing productivity, raising taxes “slightly” and making structural changes mean no budget cuts are necessary, she said May 25 in a debate in Vantaa, Finland. ‘Unpleasant Decisions’ The government probably won’t make much progress on tackling those issues until after parliamentary elections scheduled for April 2011, said Tiina Helenius , Helsinki-based chief economist at Svenska Handelsbanken AB. “Balancing the budget requires unpleasant decisions, such as tax increases, tighter public finances and cuts,” Helenius said. “No party wants to be the first to reveal their hand.” Kiviniemi was backed by 44 percent of party members in a May 26 poll commissioned by the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. Pekkarinen was supported by 30 percent, followed by Trade Minister Paavo Vaeyrynen at 11 percent. Timo Kaunisto, a 47- year-old organic egg farmer and member of parliament, was at 6 percent. The survey was based on interviews with 1,004 Center Party members and had a 3 percent margin of error. Exit polls of those who attended a series of candidate debates showed the race was closer, with Kiviniemi receiving 752 out of about 2,200 votes and Pekkarinen 716, according to the Center Party. Youth Movement The Center Party is trying to boost support after its popularity slipped to 18.7 percent in a poll published June 9 by Helsingin Sanomat. The party, which received 23.1 percent of the vote in the 2007 parliamentary election, now ranks behind the National Coalition and Social Democrats. The poll had a margin of error of 2 percentage points. The Center Party is the last of Finland’s major political parties to turn to a younger generation of leaders. The National Coalition, the junior party in the current government, was the first to do so in 2004, choosing then 32- year-old Jyrki Katainen as party leader. The Social Democrats followed suit in 2008, picking Jutta Urpilainen , then 32. Finland’s worst election-funding scandal erupted a year after the 2007 elections, when it was found that lawmakers, mostly from the Center Party, failed to disclose donations from businessmen, prompting new rules on campaign financing. Pekkarinen and Vaeyrynen each received 10,000 euros ($12,000) from businesses at the heart of the scandal, amended disclosures showed. Kiviniemi and Kaunisto weren’t implicated. ‘Hands Are Tied’ Finance Minister Katainen has said the new prime minister must commit to the government’s existing legislative program. “It seems impossible to think the new prime minister could persuade coalition partners to agree to a greatly altered course,” said Pitkaenen of Turku University. The new prime minister’s “hands are tied.” Finland’s budget deficit may widen to 4.1 percent of gross domestic product this year after the recession slashed corporate tax payments, the Finance Ministry forecast in March. In the long term, the government must tackle the gap in public finances caused by Europe’s most rapidly aging population. Three working Finns will support every pensioner by 2015, down from about four now, according to the United Nations. This means the new prime minister must find a way to coax Finns to work longer. Vanhanen, who attempted to raise the retirement age to 65 from 63 in March 2009, was forced to back down after a worker protest and no-confidence motion. Finland, with 5.36 million people, will see the economy expand 1.1 percent this year and 2.1 percent in 2011, according to Finance Ministry estimates. The Center Party’s new leader will be chosen by a vote of as many as 2,000 representatives of the party’s district organizations. The prime minister will hold office until parliamentary elections on April 17. “The person who is selected must primarily be interested in running the Center Party and not seek to be a short-term prime minister,” former Premier Anneli Jaeaetteenmaeki , who backs Kiviniemi, said in a May 31 column on the website of broadcaster YLE. “The party management needs to rejuvenate.” To contact the reporter on this story: Kati Pohjanpalo in Helsinki at kpohjanpalo@bloomberg.net