- cross-posted to:
- Finland@europe.pub
- cross-posted to:
- Finland@europe.pub
Finland headed to the polls on Sunday to elect thousands of councillors in a range of local and regional bodies.
The Social Democrats took a big win in the municipal elections, taking nearly one in four votes nationwide to push the National Coalition Party of Prime Minister Petteri Orpo into second place.
In the county council elections, for 21 regional bodies that arrange social and healthcare outside Helsinki, the SDP also topped the poll. The Centre Party recorded a good result in its rural heartlands to secure third spot.
Government parties did poorly, with all but the NCP losing support compared to the previous municipal elections in 2021. Turnout in the municipal election was 54.2 percent, while the county elections saw 51.7 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots.
The dual vote for municipal and county councils caused logistical issues for election officials, with counting slower than usual for Finland, where large numbers vote in advance and results are usually clear within a couple of hours of polls closing.
The Finns Party saw support collapse compared to the last municipal election, with the party nearly halving its vote from four years ago. They lost support in several towns that are seeing hospital services cut back as part of the central government’s savings drive.
In Sweden we’ve been quarantining the Nazis for a long time, but eventually the right wingers lost enough voters to them which made it impossible for them to win without some sort of cooperation.
At that point they started campaigning for the Nazis, saying how much they’ve grown and changed. This of course led to the right losing even more to the Nazis and gave the Nazis a strong bargaining position when they won the election together.
Not saying that the strategy is wrong, but it requires morally fit conservatives or voters.
I think the best line is via rule of law, but it has to be law passed when there isn’t a threat from such a party. If it’s in response to a particular group rising, then it’s seen as an attack on that group and not defence of the country.