Finland - 14 Apr 2019 Parliamentary Election
Despite the relatively small changes in mid-2018, despite the fact that the three major parties have supported, by mid-2018 the winner of the next parliamentary elections can not be declared. Moving voters have, in the turn of the century, waved the power of parties even at the end of the parliamentary elections. Examples of quick turnarounds are found in this millennium parliamentary elections. The top three will remain the same. Instead, the differences between the SDP, the congregation and the center will intensify. The reason for the stalemate of stalemate is the decline of both the SDP and the consortium support. The SDP loses its support of 0.9 and the consortium 0.8 percentage points. - The situation is so much the same that the SDP and the consortium are fighting for the party of the biggest party. The center is clearly behind these two.
Finnish citizens resident outside Finland won’t have to schlep to their nearest embassy to vote in the 2019 parliamentary and European elections, thanks to a rule change to finally allow postal voting. Some 250,000 Finnish citizens with the right to vote reside outside the country, but turnout has been as low as ten percent in some elections among that group. Voting currently has to be done in person, at a diplomatic mission, and Finland’s network of embassies has shrunk in recent years.
Support for the Social Democrats and Christian Democrats is around the same level as among people living in Finland,” noted Peltoniemi. The National Coalition Party and Swedish People’s Party, on the other hand, have bigger support among expats than among Finnish residents.
Many experienced MPs have announced that they no longer stand for election in the spring elections. Among the MPs of the center, Tapani Tölli, Markku Rossi, Seppo Kääriäinen and Niilo Keränen have previously said they will leave politics in the next election.
Greens' support for YLE's poll in August 2018 was 12.6 percent. In September 2017, the popularity was 17.8 percent. Usually, green election results are below the poll. In the European 2009 polls, the Greens received 12.4 percent of the vote. Green chairman Touko Aalto admitted that the decline in popularity in the polls is annoying. "Of course, such Gallup results are a bit annoying, even though I realize that major movements are taking place in these times," Aalto said.
The support of the Left Alliance is highest in percentage points. The party's support rises to 9.1 percent, which is 1.4 percentage points higher than in the previous Survey. The Left Alliance and the Greens supporters are similar in time to time. Looking at the growing popularity of the Left Alliance, it is a mirror image of what the Greens have lost support.
The True Finns and the Blue Future also raise their support. The rise of the blue future is partly explained by the previous measurement result, which was the weakest of the party so far. Blue's small support increases from the former basic Finns, ie from the old reference group. - According to the background material, the increase in support from Finnish peoples is due to men, under 25 and the working population. One might think that the fundamental words of the True Finns, including the ending of humanitarian migration, appeal to young men.
President Sauli Niinisto accepted the resignation of the government led by centrist Prime Minister Juha Sipila on 08 March 2019. The president asked the government to complete its term in office and serve as the caretaker government. Center Party MP Arto Satonen said that the situation will not make much difference as the government's term in office was nearly over. The parliamentary election was due in April. Media reports said the government faltered after its major health reform virtually failed.
Some 4.5 million Finns headed to the polls Sunday 14 April 2019 to vote for representatives to the 200-seat Eduskunta parliament. Widespread public dissatisfaction with recent spending cuts looked likely to propel the opposition Social Democratic Party back to government for the first time in 16 years. The opposition center-left Social Democratic Party was expected to come out on top with 19 percent support. That outcome would give party leader Antti Rinne, a former finance minister, the task of finding coalition partners to form the first left-leaning government in two decades. The conservative National Coalition Party, which was in the outgoing center-right governing coalition, was neck-and-neck in second with the far-right Finns Party at around 16-17 percent. Prime Minister Juha Sipila's Center Party and the Greens were expected to come in fourth and fifth. The far-right Finns Party, led by hardline MEP Jussi Halla-aho, has seen a surge in support in recent months during an anti-immigration dominated campaign, urging people to "Vote for some borders."
The Social Democrats and other parties criticized Sipila's outgoing center-right coalition for implementing welfare cuts in an attempt to reinvigorate the economy. Rinne advocated for increasing taxes and spending to preserve health and social benefits and a world-class education system. Only 6.6% of the population is foreign-born, the lowest rate in Western Europe. Until recently, immigration was only a minor election issue. However, the Finns Party has attracted voters from small towns and villages worried about the issue.
Government parties took a drubbing in Finland’s parliamentary election on Sunday as Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s Centre Party polled its lowest general election result ever with just 13.8 percent of the vote to lose 13 seats with all votes counted, while hard-right populist Finns Party came second with 39 seats, just one behind the Social Democrats' 40. Coalition partner Blue Reform was obliterated, getting just one percent of the vote and no MPs, while the third government partner the National Coalition Party emerged from four years in power relatively unscathed to gain one seat and finish on 38 seats.
An upstart in the race according to media polls, the Finns Party made good on pre-election polling and staged a strong finish with 17.5 percent of the vote. Immigration hardliner and party chair Jussi Halla-aho had previously had said he wanted to take the party into the next government. Halla-aho scored a double win for the Finns Party, as he emerged as the evening’s biggest vote magnet, attracting support from more than 30,000 voters. The centre-left Social Democratic Party managed a razor thin lead over its rivals, snapping up 17.7 percent of ballots cast, one of its poorest election outcomes ever. But that was enough for the Social Democrats to increase their parliamentary presence by six seats to 40, likely giving the party the mandate to initiate government formation talks.
Events have proceeded quickly since the SDP minister in charge of overseeing state-owned firms, Sirpa Paatero, resigned 29 November 2019. That came amid revelations that she knew in advance of the postal company's plans to shift some workers to a lower-paying contract, and misled MPs about it. Since then, there have been indications that former union boss Rinne, too, knew of the plan and tacitly approved it in August, before a protracted postal strike this autumn.
Prime Minister Antti Rinne resigned in the face of a parliamentary challenge that was to have begun on the afternoon of 03 December 2019. Rinne said at noon on Tuesday that he would tender his resignation to President Sauli Niinistö, two hours before MPs were to begin debating an interpellation filed by opposition parties. Just over half an hour later, Niinistö accepted Rinne's resignation at the presidential residence, Mäntyniemi. That meant that Rinne's cabinet had formally resigned and would continue on as a caretaker government. The current five-party government looks likely to carry on after a cabinet reshuffle. The SDP's main coalition partner, the Centre, which triggered the crisis by expressing doubt in Rinne, is unlikely to want new elections. The nationalist Finns Party, the second-largest group in Parliament, has seen rising popularity. However its chair, Jussi Halla-aho, said on Tuesday afternoon that he did "not see re-thinking the makeup of the government as the primary alternative".
On 10 December 2019 Finland had a new government, headed by Social Democratic Party vice chair, Sanna Marin. The administration is Finland’s 76th. At just 34 years old, Marin, the former Minister for Transport and Communications, is now the world’s youngest premier. Her cabinet consists of 12 women and seven men. All leaders of the five-party government coalition are women. President Sauli Niinistö appointed the new administration shortly after 3pm on 10 December 2019, at the same time accepting the resignation of the previous government led by SDP chair Antti Rinne. Rinne had been premier for just six months before tendering his resignation over his mishandling of a labour dispute between postal workers and their state-owned employer, national mail carrier Posti. Rinne and his government continued in a caretaker capacity until Marin's formal appointment. Prior to Niinistö’s appointment of the new government, MPs voted to confirm Marin as the new head of government. Government MPs gave Marin a comfortable margin of 99 votes to 70 to seal the deal. Thirty MPs were not present for the vote.
Estonia's interior minister lashed out at Finland's new prime minister, Sanna Marin, accusing the 34-year-old of being unfit for office and participating in a neo-Bolshevik conspiracy against her country. Mart Helme, a member of Estonia's right-wing populist Conservative People's Party, told local media that recent events in Finland have made his "hair stand on end." Noting that Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin once remarked that "every cook could become a minister," Helme lamented that "now we can see that a saleswoman has become a prime minister [in Finland]." Continuing his attack on the new leader, Helme suggested that Marin is part of a "red" conspiracy to dismantle Finland. "Now we can actually see to some extent how the historical revenge of the reds on the whites, that is to say, the reds who wanted to liquidate the Finnish state already in the [Finnish Civil War of 1918], have now come to power and are now desperately trying to liquidate Finland."
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