YLE poll has Greens and Swedish People lose seat in European Parliament

THE NATIONAL COALITION is set to be the largest Finnish political party in the next European Parliament, reveals a poll by YLE.

The poll indicates that the ruling right-wing party is set to receive 21.7 per cent of the votes cast in Finland, enough to secure 4 of the 15 seats allocated for Finland in the European Parliament. The Social Democratic Party, in turn, is projected to win three seats with a vote share of 19.7 per cent.

The Finns Party was the choice of 14.1 per cent and the Centre the choice of 13.6 per cent of the poll respondents, whereas the Green League and Left Alliance were each picked by 10.5 per cent of the respondents. Each of the vote shares would be enough to secure two seats, leaving none for either the Swedish People’s Party or the electoral alliance formed by the Christian Democrats and Movement Now.

The poll results suggest that the upcoming elections could represent a change particularly for the Social Democrats and Green League. The former is projected to register an over five-point increase in its vote share, the latter a five-and-a-half-point drop in its share.

Jari Pajunen, the managing director of Taloustutkimus, pointed out to the public broadcasting company that the poll results are a surprisingly accurate reflection of the most recent parliamentary elections in Finland.

“I’d assume that once the campaigns have started and European election candidates get their names out there, the setting for the elections and candidate tickets will start having a bigger impact,” he said.

Finns will elect altogether 15 lawmakers to the European Parliament on 9 June, two more than in the previous elections due to Brexit and last year’s decision to raise the total number of seats to 720.

Compared with the 2019 elections, the poll shows a one-seat gain for the National Coalition, Social Democrats and Left Alliance. The Swedish People’s Party, by contrast, is set to be left without a single seat for the first time since Finland joined the EU in 1995. Also the Green League would lose one of its seats if the elections reflect the poll results.

Pajunen said the Swedish People’s Party has to make up a lot of ground if it wants to hold on to its seat.

“We’re talking about tens of thousands of votes that’d have to be won between this poll and the elections,” he highlighted to YLE.

Taloustutkimus contacted 2,118 people for the hybrid poll on 23–29 April. Fewer than three-quarters, or 71.3 per cent, of them were able and willing to disclose the party affiliation of their current preferred candidate.

Parties in Finland turned in their final tickets for the elections on Tuesday, 30 April. Helsingin Sanomat reported that the tickets include a total of 31 active Members of the Finnish Parliament, as well as six Members of the European Parliament – Eero Heinäluoma (SDP), Elsi Katainen (Centre), Ville Niinistö (Greens), Sirpa Pietikäinen (NCP), Pirkko Ruohonen-Lerner (PS) and Henna Virkkunen (NCP).Teuvo Hakkarainen, who represents the Finns Party in the outgoing European Parliament, was not nominated by the Finns Party. He is instead running as an independent candidate on the ticket of the Freedom Alliance, a nationalist-conservative party registered in Finland in 2022.

Aleksi Teivainen – HT