Centre Party and SDP make gains in increased vote for European Parliament elections
Greens and Christian Democrats each lose a seat; former Centre Party Prime Minister Anneli Jäätteenmäki is overwhelming vote-sponge
Sunday’s elections to the European Parliament saw gains for the main partners in the governing coalition, the Centre Party and the Social Democrats, a defensive victory of sorts for the opposition National Coalition Party, and loss of representation for the Christian Democrats. The Greens also lost one MEP.
Fine weather on Sunday helped to boost turnout, and 41.1% of the electorate voted, up appreciably from the dismal 31.4% five years ago. The former Prime Minister and Centre Party chairwoman Anneli Jäätteenmäki rebounded from her dramatic demise of last June and was overwhelmingly the most popular individual candidate. She gathered in more than 149,000 votes.
The Social Democrats took 21.1% of the votes, up from 17.9% in 1999. This advance was not enough to secure them a fourth seat. The SDP’s biggest vote-winner was Reino Paasilinna , who gained re-election in 6th place overall, with more than 64,000 votes. Paasilinna is an ex-journalist and former Director General of the Finnish Broadcasting Company.
The Centre Party also made ground from 21.3% to 23.3%. The party held on to its four seats, and can boast the runaway individual winner in these elections: Anneli Jäätteenmäki amassed an impressive personal pot of 149,108 votes nationwide.
The moderate conservatives of the National Coalition Party remained the largest European Parliament contingent, but lost some ground from five years ago. Their share was now 23.7%, down from 25.3%. They, too, held on to their four seats, and the party’s overwhelming individual success-story was Alexander Stubb, who finished as runner-up behind Jäätteenmäki with nearly 115,000 votes. The 36-year-old Stubb is a political novice, but an experienced Eurocrat. He beat off the challenge for the NCP’s former chairman Ville Itälä, who had to be content with 65,000 votes.
Another winner was the Left Alliance’s Esko Seppänen, who handily secured re-election - as his party’s only MEP - with over 72,000 votes. The party as a whole was unable to capitalise on Seppänen’s popularity: the 9.1% share of the vote was identical with the 1999 figure.
The Greens fared badly: MP and former leader Satu Hassi sailed through with 75,000 votes, but Matti Vuori was unable to gain re-election, as the party saw its vote decline from 13.4% to 10.4%. MEP Heidi Hautala did not stand for re-election, having returned to the Finnish Parliament last year.
There was even worse news for the Christian Democrats. The defection in mid-term of Eija-Riitta Korhola to the National Coalition Party cost them a seat. Their leading candidate Bjarne Kallis won more than 20,000 votes and the party secured 4.3% of the total, up from 2.4% in 1999, but then the Christian Democrats had made an advantageous election alliance with the Centre Party and Korhola rode in on their coat-tails. As if to add insult to injury, she was now elected - with a bigger vote - to the ranks of the National Coalition Party MEPs. Defections in Finnish politics rarely produce winners like this.
The Swedish People’s Party, who had also taken part in that earlier alliance, now stood alone and held on to their one seat. Outgoing MEP Astrid Thors (who returns to the Finnish Parliament) was replaced by Henrik Lax. The party lost some ground, from 6.8% to 5.7%, and was the only member of the three-party government coalition to be rebuffed. A part of the losses may have related to the popularity of Ms. Thors.
The results indicate that the European Parliament elections in Finland differed starkly from those in many other European countries. Elsewhere the poll was widely used once again as a stick with which to beat governing parties and voice protest. There are few signs of protest to be seen when only the junior member of a ruling coalition actually lost ground in terms of share of the vote, and then only by 1%-point. The improvement recorded by the SDP was something of a last-minute surprise, as pundits and opinion polls had painted a much darker picture.
The opposition National Coalition Party, which lost some ground relative to 1999 despite ultimately taking the largest share of the vote, will naturally wish to compare their result with the rather disastrous Parliamentary elections of 2003, since this suggests their year in opposition has won them 5%-points more at the polls. However, such a comparison is perhaps misleading, given that in European Parliament elections voter activity is at its highest in the urban areas and in the south of the country, both NCP strongholds. A further factor is that it is particularly the better-educated who go to vote in a low-turnout election.
The Greens feared losing their second MEP after the highly popular Heidi Hautala returned to Finnish politics. It turned out to be a just fear: the Greens were the largest losers on the night.
Though there are seven new MEPS in the fourteen elected, the list of those chosen shows a good deal of political experience. Three former party leaders - Jäätteenmäki, Itälä, and Hassi - were elected as new MEPs, for example, and Paavo Väyrynen (Centre Party) is a fourth, now in his third term in Strasbourg.
The fact that the voting percentage rose to 41.1% is a cause for cautious optimism. It may be considerably better than the previous time, but it is not after all a particularly impressive figure.
The very fact that the numbers went up is a little at odds with the reasons for increases elsewhere in Europe: in many cases voter turnout was swelled by opposition parties or extra-Parliamentary groupings - in particular the euro-sceptics - who gathered people together to tell their governments what a mess they had made of things. In many cases the voting reflected displeasure with domestic policies, or in the case of some countries, with the situation in Iraq.
Here the only real protest worthy of the name was that four of the eleven MEPs seeking re-election did not get another term. They must now contemplate whether the fault lay in them or in dissatisfaction with the European Union.
Finland's 14 MEPs (Finland had 16 in the old Parliament):
Anneli Jäätteenmäki (Centre Party) NEW
Kyösti Virrankoski (Centre Party)
Paavo Väyrynen (Centre Party)
Hannu Takkula (Centre Party) NEW
Alexander Stubb (National Coalition Party) NEW
Ville Itälä (National Coalition Party) NEW
Piia-Noora Kauppi (National Coalition Party)
Eija-Riitta Korhola (National Coalition Party)
Reino Paasilinna (Social Democrats)
Riitta Myller (Social Democrats)
Lasse Lehtinen (Social Democrats) NEW
Esko Seppänen (Left Alliance)
Satu Hassi (Greens) NEW
Henrik Lax (Swedish People’s Party) NEW
Previously in HS International Edition:
SUNDAY EVENING: Centre Party and SDP make gains in increased vote for European Parliament elections (13.6.2004)
Helsingin Sanomat
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Centre Party and SDP make gains in increased vote for European Parliament elections
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