Antti Lindtman, the chairperson of the Social Democratic Party, talked about the opposition party’s vision for the social and health care system at a presser in Helsinki on 13 January 2025. The Social Democrats holds an over five-percentage-point lead over the National Coalition in a new poll by Helsingin Sanomat. (Jussi Nukari – Lehtikuva)
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THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY has solidified its standing as the most popular political party in Finland, reveals an opinion poll conducted for Helsingin Sanomat by Verian.
The poll indicates that popular support for the leading opposition party has crept up by 0.4 percentage points to 24.4 per cent over the past month – to its highest level in the electoral term that started in the spring of 2023.
The Social Democrats, the newspaper wrote, has widened its lead at the top of the poll to over five points in trend-like fashion, after being neck and neck with the National Coalition in July 2024.
The National Coalition and Finns Party both contrastively saw their popularity dip to its lowest level in the term, the former from 19.5 to 19.3 per cent and the latter from 15.7 to 14.9 per cent. For the Finns Party, the decline is attributable to many supporters becoming disinterested in politics in general rather than changing their political allegiance, the polling data suggest.
The popularity of the ruling coalition has similarly fallen to its lowest level since the parliamentary elections, to 42.4 per cent, despite the modest gains made by the two junior partners, the Christian Democrats and Swedish People’s Party. The ruling coalition enjoyed the support of 42.9 per cent of the public in December and 43.9 per cent in November.
Both the Christian Democrats and Swedish People’s Party are currently polling at 4.1 per cent.
Support for the Centre fell by 0.1 points to 12.1 per cent. The Left Alliance gained 0.2 points to climb to 8.7 per cent, while the Green League stood pat at 7.8 per cent. Movement Now saw its popularity wane by 0.3 points to 2.2 per cent.
The most anticipated political events of the new year include the county and municipal elections on 13 April and the midway session of the ruling coalition on 30 April.
Verian contacted 2,466 people for the poll between 16 December and 17 January. Fewer than one-third (30%) of them were unable or unwilling to reveal which party would receive their vote if the parliamentary elections were held now.
The poll results have a margin of error of around two percentage points as far as the largest parties are concerned.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
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Source: www.helsinkitimes.fi
