Antti Lindtman, the chairperson of the Social Democratic Party, attended the summer meeting of the party leadership and parliamentary group in Helsinki on 29 August 2024. The Social Democrats made the biggest gains in the latest opinion poll carried out for Helsingin Sanomat, with the opposition party rising from 20.9 to 22.0 per cent. (Mikko Stig – Lehtikuva)
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THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY has reinforced its status as the most well supported political party in Finland, indicates the latest opinion poll commissioned by Helsingin Sanomat.
The poll reveals that support for the opposition party has increased by 1.1 percentage points to 22.0 per cent over the past month, widening its lead over the two largest ruling parties, the National Coalition and Finns Party.
Also the National Coalition and Finns Party registered modest up-ticks in popular support, from 20.2 to 20.6 per cent and from 15.0 to 15.6 per cent respectively, suggesting that their public disagreement over a government-led campaign to weed out racism has had little impact on their public perceptions.
Mauri Peltokangas, a deputy chairperson of the Finns Party, recently likened the campaign to “polishing shoes”.
The spending cuts and tax increases rubber-stamped in the budget session earlier this month similarly appear not to have prompted many to question their allegiance to the two right-wing parties.
The biggest losers in the poll were the Centre Party and Left Alliance. Support for the Centre fell by 0.9 points to 12.0 per cent, after the previous poll had brought some long-awaited good news for the agrarian centre-right party. Support for the Left Alliance decreased by 1.2 points to 8.9 per cent, close to the level it was before the surge provided by the successful European election campaign of now ex-chairperson Li Andersson.
Regardless, the Left Alliance continues to have the upper hand over the Green League. Support for the Greens dwindled by 0.3 points to 8.3 per cent, despite the opposition party’s attempts to raise its profile amid a public outcry over the deaths of thousands of endangered mussels in connection with a logging operation in Suomussalmi, Kainuu, in August.
The Swedish People’s Party and Christian Democrats continue to be separated by only 0.1 points just above the four-per-cent mark, with both of the junior coalition partners seeing a 0.1-point fall in support. Support for the four-party ruling coalition stands therefore at 44.5 per cent, an improvement of 0.8 points since August.
Support for Movement Now dropped by 0.4 points to 1.8 per cent.
Verian interviewed 2,416 people for the poll between 19 August and 13 September. The results have a margin of error of two percentage points as far as the largest parties are concerned.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
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Source: www.helsinkitimes.fi
