MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS, SUNDAY 23:45: National Coalition Party largest party, True Finns big winners, gains for Greens
Voter turnout up by around 3%-points across country despite foul weather
With all the votes counted, the results of the municipal elections held across Finland are as follows, with the figures for the 2004 municipal elections in parentheses:
National Coalition Party 23.4% (21.8%)
SDP 21.2% (24.1%)
Centre Party 20.1% (22.8%)
Greens 8.9% (7.4%)
Left Alliance 8.8% (9.5%)
True Finns 5.4% (0.9%)
Swedish People's Party 4.7% (5.2%)
Christian Democrats 4.2% (4.0%)
Independent 2.4% (3.3%)
Others 0.7% (0.8%)
The result is historic in the sense that it is the first time the National Coalition Party has been the largest party in the country at these local elections, and also for the massive gains recorded by the populist True Finns, led by Timo Soini.
The True Finns polled almost six times as many votes as four years ago and swept past the Swedish People's Party and Christian Democrats.
For the Centre Party under Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, the result will come as a disappointment, particularly as the conservatives of the NCP under Vanhanen's Finance Minister Jyrki Katainen seem to have had conspicuously less difficulty coping with the assumed handicap of government office.
For the Social Democrats, who have been in opposition since a stinging defeat in the Parliamentary elections of March 2007 and who have been led only for a matter of months by Jutta Urpilainen, the fact that they have held on to second place, despite haemorrhaging votes, will probably been seen as a relief: last-minute opinion polls had forecast an even worse result for the SDP.
The Left Alliance lost ground alongside the Social Democrats, while the Greens - who initially looked like having a horrid night as the first results came in - put on more than 1.5%-points to squeeze past the Left Alliance and become the fourth-largest party in the country.
The Greens, led by Tarja Cronberg, also overhauled the Social Democrats in both Helsinki and Espoo to become the second-largest party on those councils.
The Social Democrats had a further setback in Vantaa, where their traditional dominant position was usurped narrowly by the National Coalition Party.
These three resounding defeats in the largest cities in the country will give the SDP faithful pause for considerable thought, irrespective of whether they feel they polled better than the forecasters had projected.
The True Finns may have only secured 5.4% of the votes, but considering that they polled less than 1% four years ago, this was an outstanding performance under their leader Soini, who was the biggest vote-catcher in Espoo and indeed second only to the Greens' Osmo Soininvaara (Helsinki) in the entire country, regardless of political party.
Pundits suggested that the True Finns had seized votes from the SDP and Centre above all.
In Espoo, the presence of Timo Soini (who took more than 8,000 votes) on the electoral lists powered the True Finns to seven council seats, only two fewer than were won by the Social Democrats, who clearly suffered here from Soini's landslide.
The True Finns group, whose roots lie in the protest movement and Finnish Rural Party (Suomen Maaseudun Puolue, SMP) led by the father & son pairing of Veikko and Pekka Vennamo, has often been seen as Soini's own personal fiefdom, but this result indicates that support can be found across the country.
The opposition populists have drawn fire in some quarters for their outspoken views on immigration, but clearly in places these have struck a chord with disgruntled Finnish voters.
The election result can hardly be seen in terms of government vs. opposition, given the solid showing by the National Coalition and the arguably even better performance by their government junior partners in the Greens.
This contrasts with the 2.5%-point losses incurred by the Centre Party and the smaller defeat for the other government grouping, the Swedish People's Party.
The most recent opinion polls had forecast both the rise of the NCP conservatives and the surge by the True Finns, but in the latter case there had been some doubts over whether it would materialise on the scale predicted.
In fact it seems to have been still larger than the polls indicated.
Voter turnout was up across the country by around 3% points to reach 61.3%.
In many cases, where municipalities had merged since the last elections, or where a major incident had galvanised voters (one case in point was the water supply problems encountered in Nokia, near Tampere), the turnout rose even more, by as much as 6%-points in places.
This happened in the face of some extremely hostile weather on Sunday, as Finland was lashed top to bottom by heavy rain and driving winds that tested the resolve of many to go out and vote if they had not done so in advance.
A possible reason for the greater interest may be worries about the future as Finland faces economic contraction in the global slowdown.
One thing is certain: whoever is in charge of Finland's municipalities for the next four years is not going to have an easy time of it. Making ends meet in straitened economic circumstances is likely to put quite a strain on some of the more florid election promises.
We shall return to the subject of the elections and analysis of the results tomorrow, including what it might mean for the leadership of the Centre Party.
Finnish municipal elections: True Finns on the Rise
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by ЯoMe kb8
ing thread's title uses "True Finns", what do you expect? Finnish isn't the most used language in the world you know. 
