Finnish candidates for European Parliament named

Thirteen seats sought by 241 candidates

print this

Tuesday was the deadline for submitting candidates for the European Parliament elections in June.
      A total of 241 candidates are seeking the 13 seats that are allocated for Finland in the Parliament. A majority of the candidates, 142, are men, and 99 are women.
     
There are 13 parties in the running as well as one independent candidacy - that of Liisa Sulkakoski, a doctor from Turku.
      There is one electoral alliance involving the True Finns and the Christian Democrats. Each of the two parties are fielding ten candidates in the race.
     
The ages of the candidates range from 89 (Paavo Suominen, Finnish Senior Party) to 22 (Anna-Lili Tölkkö, Finnish Communist Party, and Niko Korte, Social Democratic Party).
      The Centre Party and the Socialist Workers’ Party have the greatest proportion of male candidates: both parties are running 14 men and six women.
     
The Green League is the only party where a majority of candidates are women: the Greens are running 11 women and 9 men in the race.
      The National Coalition Party and the Social Democrats are running equal numbers of men and women.
     
At the last European Parliament elections in 2004, the voter turnout was boosted by fine weather on the Sunday of polling, and 41.1% of the electorate cast their votes, up appreciably from the dismal 31.4% recorded in 1999.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finns least aware of EU Parliament election (12.1.2009)
  Finnish MEPs lash out at True Finns´ leader Timo Soini (23.4.2009)
  Orthodox Church: Father Mitro should stand as candidate in European Parliament election without his cassock (17.4.2009)

Links:
  Ministry of Justice: European Parliament Elections 2009

Helsingin Sanomat