The distance between Finland’s three largest parties is very small, with only six weeks left until the municipal elections, according to Yle’s latest monthly party survey.
Each of these three suffered little support in the latest measurement with the Prime Minister Sanna MarinThe Social Democratic Party (SDP) dropped just under 20 percent of voter support for the first time since he took over as leader.
The populist Finnish Party remains in second place with 18.7 per cent and the Conservative National Coalition Party (NCP) in third with 17.9 per cent.
The National Contact Point has been the largest party in all the last three municipal elections – in 2008, 2012 and 2017. The party’s success is based on strong support in large urban areas, especially in Helsinki.
However, the most recent poll, which ended on March 2, failed to assess voters’ reaction to the decline of a national party candidate. Kirsi Pihawithdrawal from the Helsinki Mayor’s Competition last weekend.
Member of Parliament and Helsinki City Councilor Juhana Vartiainen has since put forward his name as a candidate to replace the yard, but Tuomo Turja opinion poll Economic research told Yle that it is too early to determine how much of an impact the crisis on national defense policy will have on voter opinions.
"Weekend events do not appear in this measurement. Let us see if this is reflected in the next survey, but to some extent the support for the National Contact Point will be reduced," Turja said.
SDP support stops, left resets
While the SDP continues to lead the survey, support for the prime minister’s party, now at 19.5 per cent, has gradually declined in August after a record high of 23.4 per cent.
The party has lost its support, especially for female and working-age voters, Turja said.
"Northern and Eastern Finland and the municipalities are areas where SDP support has decreased," he added.
At the same time, support for the governing coalition parties of the Left Alliance SDP rose by almost two percentage points from 7.2 per cent last month to 9.1 per cent this time.
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Turja states that the party has managed to stop the flow of voter support to other parties.
The Left Alliance has traditionally lost its support for the SDP and the Greens, but now the situation has leveled off. The leaks to the Finnish party also seem to have ended," Turja said.
The Left Alliance ranks sixth, right behind the government’s coalition partners, the Greens and the Center Party.
Finnish party “progresses in all areas”
According to the latest poll, the Finnish party has succeeded in consolidating its support among voters, especially in rural areas.
"The Finnish party is advancing in all regions, but especially in small towns and municipalities," Turja said.
The party garnered just over eight per cent of the vote in the last municipal election in 2017, but it is the largest opposition party voting this time.
The Economic Survey interviewed 2,958 people from February 3 to March 2, 2021. A total of 1,824 voters revealed their party survey. The margin of error was +/- 2.0 percentage points.
Source: The Nordic Page