(Bloomberg) -- Finnish Prime Minister Antti Rinne was able to temporarily quell an uprising that threatened to end his career on Monday, after his party of Social Democrats rallied around their leader.

Rinne’s future had hung in the balance earlier in the day, after a key coalition partner -- the Center Party -- signaled it was pulling its support for him just six months into his term.

At emergency meetings that ran late into the night in Helsinki, Center Party lawmakers voiced their mistrust in Rinne. But their efforts to unseat the prime minister, who leads a five-party coalition, appeared to have failed, after the Social Democrats said they had “full confidence” in their leader.

The government crisis was triggered by Rinne’s handling of a dispute over pay at the state-owned Posti Group Oyj. According to local media reports, Rinne sought to stop some cost-cutting measures, breaking a tradition of keeping politics out of such talks. Lawmakers were also angered amid concerns that Rinne had misled parliament about his involvement in the negotiations.

But Rinne turned the dispute against the Center Party. “It’s unclear what they mean and what they want in this situation,” he told reporters.

Still, the prime minister’s future is far from clear. He faces a motion for a no-confidence vote from the opposition, with a debate set for Tuesday afternoon and a vote slated to follow on Wednesday. Though the Center Party has indicated it is unhappy with Rinne, it has made clear it doesn’t want to step away from a coalition with the Social Democrats.

To contact the reporters on this story: Kati Pohjanpalo in Helsinki at kpohjanpalo@bloomberg.net;Leo Laikola in Helsinki at llaikola@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tasneem Hanfi Brögger at tbrogger@bloomberg.net

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