The National Coalition and Finns Party have both improved their standing among voters, the former rising from 19.4 to 19.8 per cent and the latter from 16.1 to 16.3 per cent. With YLE reporting earlier this month that popular support for both of the ruling right-wing parties has fallen by roughly a point, the poll results likely come as a bit of a relief for the parties.

The YLE poll showed a 5.5-point gap between the Social Democrats and the National Coalition.

Sakari Nurmela, the research director at Verian, told Helsingin Sanomat on Tuesday that the National Coalition and Finns Party made gains because voters who had withdrawn to the sidelines re-affirmed their support for them. The Finns Party, he also estimated, appears to have put a stop to the long-running downward trend in its popularity, which has added up to an almost four-point loss since the parliamentary elections.

The scales have nonetheless tipped in favour of the Social Democrats, which shared the poll lead with the National Coalition in July.

The Left Alliance made the biggest gains in the poll, climbing from 8.6 to 9.1 per cent. Support for the Centre and Green League contrastively fell, from 12.5 to 12.2 per cent and from 8.0 to 7.8 per cent, respectively. The Swedish People’s Party and Christian Democrats are neck and neck at 3.9 per cent, after the former saw its approval rating fall by 0.3 points and the latter by 0.1 points.

The four-party governing coalition thereby has the support of 43.9 per cent of the public, an improvement of 0.2 points from October.

Support for Movement Now crept up by 0.2 points to 2.4 per cent.

Verian interviewed 2,622 people for the poll between 14 October and 15 November. The results have a margin of error of two points.

Aleksi Teivainen – HT