SDP sweeps in county, municipal polls, Finns Party faces debacle

The opposition Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue (Social Democratic Party of Finland-SDP) bagged highest number of votes in the municipal and county elections held simultaneously across Finland on Sunday.

The ruling Kansallinen Kokoomus (National Coalition Party-NCP) secured second place in the elections followed by opposition parties Suomen Keskusta (Centre Party of Finland), Vihreä Liitto (Green League) and Vasemmistoliitto (Left Alliance) while the Perussuomalaiset (Finns Party), second largest component of the four-party alliance government faced a massive debacle in the polls.

In the municipal elections, SDP bagged a total of 5,55,891 votes (23%), which was 5.3% higher compared to the previous polls.

Kokoomus got 52,7,931 votes (21.9%), Keskusta 3,96,324 (16.4%), Vihreä Liitto 2,53,592 (10.5%), Vasemmistoliitto 2,23,396 (9.3%) while the Perussuomalaiset got 1,84,188 votes (7.6%), which was 6.8% lower compared to the previous elections.

The votes for Kokoomus, Keskusta and Vasemmistoliitto increased by 0.5%, 1.6% and 1.3% respectively while the votes for Vihreä Liitto dropped by 0.1 percent from the previous municipal elections.

Ruling Suomenruotsalainenkansanpuolue (Swedish People’s Party of Finland-RKP) and Suomen Kristillisdemokraati (Christian Democratic Party-CD) bagged 1,12,492 votes (4.7%) and 86,216 votes (3.6%) respectively. The votes for RKP dropped by 0.3% while the votes for CD remained almost same.

The rest two percent votes went to Liike Nyt (Movement Now), The Vapauden liitto, Crystal Party, The Communist Party of Finland, Animal Justice Party of Finland and others.

A total of 24,03,022 voters out of 45,30,989 cast votes in the elections and the turnout was 54,2 %, which was slightly lower (55.1%) than the previous elections.

The authority, however, cancelled 41,697 votes.

In county elections (elections to 21 wellbeing services-social, health and rescue services- counties), the opposition SDP bagged highest number of 4,42,988 (22.5%) votes while the ruling Kokoomus secured second position with 4,02,315 (20.4%) votes.

Opposition Keskusta placed third with 3,81,659 (19.4%) votes followed by Vasemmistoliitto 1,78,857 (9.1%), Vihreä Liitto 1,78,373 (9.1%), ruling Perussuomalaiset 1,52,747 (7.8%), RKP 97,782 (5%) and CD 94,578 (4.8%) while the rest votes were bagged by other parties.

A total of 20,53,028 voters out of 39,70,342 cast votes in the elections and the turnout was 51.7 %, which was much higher than the previous elections (47.5%).

The authority cancelled 83,713 votes.