Government proposes moving elections to April and changes to election system

Three per cent party hurdle proposed for getting into Parliament

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Changes are in store for upcoming Parliamentary elections if Parliament approves a government proposal for changes in electoral arrangements.
      One of the proposals is to move the date of Parliamentary elections a month later than they are now, and to schedule Presidential elections a week later than at present.
     
In the future, Parliamentary elections would be held on the third Sunday of April, unless the date falls on Easter, in which case they would take place a week earlier.
      Presidential elections would be held on the fourth Sunday of January. The aim of the changes is to move the climax of election campaign to a more advantageous time, thus increasing voter turnout.
     
Minister of Justice Tuija Brax (Green) said while announcing the proposals on Thursday that the change in scheduling does not require amending the constitution.
      The aim is to implement the new election day in the next Parliamentary election.
     
A more far-reaching change would be the proposed alterations to the election system.
      Under the proposal, citizens would continue to vote only for candidates of their own electoral district, and each district would elect a number of MPs proportional to its population.
      What is new would be the introduction of a national three per cent hurdle: this means that no party that does not get at least three per cent of the vote nationwide would get seats in Parliament.
     
The aim of the change is to have the composition of Parliament to better reflect the support that the parties have nationally.
      If the proposed changes had been implemented in the Parliamentary elections of 2007, the large parties would have got fewer seats than they have now, and the medium-sized parties would have received a few more.
      Brax said at Thursday’s press conference that the change is important for the sake of fairness. Under the present system, parties need a much higher percentage of the total vote in small electoral districts than in large ones.
     
The changes to the electoral system require a constitutional amendment, which means that they must be approved by two separate Parliaments. Therefore, they cannot be implemented in next year’s election yet.
      Brax noted that all Parliamentary parties except the Social Democrats were in favour of the changes. The SDP has hoped to link the changes with proposed changes to Presidential powers.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Government agrees voting threshold for future Parliamentary elections (20.5.2009)
  Finnish Minister of Justice wants extensive changes in election system (22.4.2002)

Helsingin Sanomat