Chairperson Antti Lindtman of the Social Democratic Party spoke at the party’s campaign launch in Vantaa on 8 February 2025. The Social Democratic Party is heading into the spring’s joint county and municipal elections in pole position, reveals the first of three pre-election polls commissioned by YLE. (Seppo Samuli – Str / Lehtikuva)
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A POLL by YLE suggests the Social Democratic Party has a chance to triumph in both the county and municipal elections organised in Finland on 13 April.
YLE on Thursday reported that the opposition party would receive 22.9 per cent of the vote if the county elections were held today, a share that represents an improvement of 3.6 percentage points from the previous, first-ever county elections held in 2022. In the municipal elections, the party would increase its vote share from 2021 by 4.3 percentage points to 22.0 per cent.
The results indicate that the party is successfully channelling public discontent with the government, analysed Tuomo Turja, the research director of Taloustutkimus.
“On the other hand, also the government’s politics has its supporters,” he added. “The National Coalition traditionally has quite a loyal supporter base that turns out in all elections and that’s reflected in its [election] results.”
The National Coalition was the choice of 20.3 per cent of the people surveyed for the county election poll and 20.8 per cent of people surveyed for the municipal election poll. The percentages would represent drops of 1.3 and 0.6 points, respectively, from the previous elections.
The Centre Party came in third in both polls with the backing of 18.4 per cent of respondents in the county election poll and 14.5 per cent of respondents in the municipal election poll. Both percentages represent a roughly half-a-point drop from the previous elections.
The Finns Party was the fourth most popular choice with a 10.8-per-cent share of the hypothetical vote in county elections and a 12.9-per-cent share of the hypothetical vote in the municipal elections. The former signals a drop of 0.3 points, the latter one of 1.6 points from the previous elections.
Turja said the populist right-wing party is “clearly struggling” to perform as well in the municipal elections as in other elections – particularly the parliamentary elections.
Alongside the Social Democrats, the Left Alliance is the only party to poll higher than its previous election results. The opposition party, the poll found, would win 10.2 per cent of the vote if the county elections were held now – an improvement of 2.2 points from 2022 – and 9.8 per cent of the vote if the municipal elections were held now – an improvement of 1.9 points from 2021.
The Green League came in sixth in the county election poll with 7.7 per cent and fifth in the municipal election poll with 10.2 per cent of the vote, the former representing a slight increase and the latter a slight decrease from the previous elections.
The poll indicates that the biggest loser of the elections could be the Swedish People’s Party. The ruling party was the choice of 3.0 per cent of respondents in the county election poll – a drop of 1.9 points from the first county elections – and 3.9 per cent of respondents in the municipal election poll – a drop of 1.1 points from the 2021 municipal elections.
The Christian Democrats would see its vote share fall by 0.1 points to 4.1 per cent in the county elections and by 0.6 points in the municipal elections. Movement Now would drop more than a point in both elections, falling to 0.6 per cent in the county elections and to 0.5 per cent in the municipal elections, according to the poll.
Turja on Thursday reminded YLE that even major changes can yet occur before the elections once the election campaigns and debates have got properly underway. He also called attention to the similarities in the poll results, explaining them with the high number of candidates running in both elections and high degree of overlap in the election themes.
“Voters maybe aren’t able to discern too well what’s the difference in the elections,” he remarked.
Taloustutkimus contacted 2,224 people for the county election poll and 2,604 people for the municipal election poll between 13 January and 3 February. The contacts yielded 1,496 and 1,867 responses, respectively, translating to a margin of error of 2.0–2.2 percentage points.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
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Source: www.helsinkitimes.fi
