Prime Minister Petteri Orpo (NCP) spoke to reporters outside Smolna, a banquet hall of the Finnish government, in Helsinki on 8 January 2025. A YLE poll shows that Orpo’s National Coalition has inched closer to the Social Democrats since December. (Antti Aimo-Koivisto – Lehtikuva)
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THE NATIONAL COALITION has narrowed the gap between it and the Social Democrats, reveals the latest opinion poll conducted for YLE by Taloustutkimus.
The ruling right-wing party was the choice of 20 per cent of the poll respondents, marking an improvement of 1.2 percentage points from the previous month. Support for the Social Democrats, meanwhile, declined by 0.8 points to 23.2 per cent, meaning the two parties are separated by only 3.2 points.
Tuomo Turja, the research director at Taloustutkimus, told YLE on Thursday that the National Coalition gained support particularly toward the end of the polling period, in early January.
October and November, he reminded, were difficult for the party, but now the party appears to be polling at a level that is close to the 20.8-per-cent vote share it won in the parliamentary elections of April 2023.
The Social Democratic Party contrastively surged in popularity during the course of the autumn, but it appears that the upward momentum was lost at the end of last year, according to Turja. “It’s worth pointing out that when you’re [polling] around 24 or 25 per cent, in Finnish politics that’s usually a ceiling after which there’s only one way to go, meaning down,” he said.
Support for the Finns Party, the second senior partner in the four-party governing coalition, appears to have settled at around the 15-per-cent mark, about five points lower than its 20.1-per-cent vote haul in 2023.
The YLE poll indicates that support for the populist party has dwindled by 0.2 points to 14.9 per cent. With Minister of Social Affairs and Health Kaisa Juuso (PS) coming under considerable pressure during a heated parliamentary debate last month about the future of hospital services in several regions, the results probably could have been worse for the party.
Turja noted, though, that the party lost support especially in the electoral district of Oulu, where emotions ran high during a debate about the services of Oulaskangas Hospital
The Centre was the choice of 13.1 per cent of the poll respondents for the second consecutive month, while the Left Alliance and Green League both gained 0.1 points to rise to 8.9 and 8.3 per cent, respectively. The Christian Democrats and Swedish People’s Party are neck and neck at 3.9 per cent, after the former lost 0.1 points and the latter gained 0.6 points.
Movement Now saw its popularity fall from 2.3 to 1.5 per cent.
“Support for the Swedish People’s Party has picked up slightly. Support for Movement Now jumped noticeably in November, and it looks like it’s returned to its usual level,” analysed Turja.
Taloustutkimus contacted 2,533 people for the poll between 9 December 2024 and 7 January 2025. Almost three-quarters, or 1,824, of the people were able and willing to reveal which party would receive their vote if the parliamentary elections were held now.
The results have a margin of error of at most two percentage points.
Parties in Finland are currently starting to jostle for position for the county and municipal elections held on 13 April 2025.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
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Source: www.helsinkitimes.fi
