- 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.
I just congratulated my Finnish friends and one of them explained to me that Perussuomalaiset (the party’s name in Finnish) directly translates to “The Basic Finns”! I really hope the opposition is using that in English interviews.
Their official English party name used to be ‘True Finns’ but at some point someone probably figured out that sounds a bit elitist; Like everyone not supporting them is not a true Finn?
Somebody probably accused them of the “No true Finn” fallacy.
2 years ago, when I first heard about them in Helsinki, I genuinely thought they were a Sami party. But yeah, that is usually the underlying message of such names, like for example Forza Italia in Italy (which also meant that football journalists were directly turned into political megaphones during the games of the National team).
Apparently now the official English name is The Finns. Calling themselves Basic in English wasn’t to their taste apparently.