He has only been in office barely three months, but according to a fresh poll commissioned by Helsingin Sanomat and conducted by pollster TNS Gallup, almost two in three Finns say that President Sauli Niinistö has succeeded well in his tasks so far. A total of 62 per cent of Finnish citizens felt that his performance has been quite good or very good.
Only two per cent of citizens gave poor grades for the President’s job performance.
Gender, age, place of residence, education or other background factors do not seem to have much influence on the evaluation of Niinistö’s job performance.
Instead, there are differences based on voting behaviour. Finns Party voters gave the most negative evaluation for Niinistö’s performance since he replaced Tarja Halonen in office at the beginning of March .
As many as 61 per cent of those Finns Party voters who responded to the gallup poll gave Niinistö a poor approval rating.
Centre Party and Left Alliance voters also gave ratings that are slightly below the average.
Supporters of the National Coalition Party [Niinistö is a former NCP chairman and sat as Finance Minister and later as Speaker of Parliament while a party member] and the Social Democratic Party gave Niinistö the best approval ratings.
The same surveyalso asked Finns’ estimates on the job performance of Speaker of Parliament Eero Heinäluoma (SDP).
More than one-third (37%) of the respondents gave Heinäluoma a good approval rating. The most common response concerning Heinäluoma was nevertheless neutral - neither good nor bad.
A total of 43 per cent of Finns thought this way.
According to the TNS Gallup survey, Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen’s (National Coalition Party) approval rating was slightly lower than that of President Niinistö, but higher than that of Speaker of Parliament Heinäluoma.
TNS Gallup surveyed Finnish citizens’ estimates on the job performance of President Sauli Niinistö and Speaker of Parliament Eero Heinäluoma.
The survey was commissioned by Helsingin Sanomat.
TNS Gallup conducted telephone interviews with a total of 1,003 Finns aged 15 years and over between May 15th and 28th. The semi-autonomous island province of Åland was not part of the survey.
The questions concerning voting behaviour were put only to voting-age respondents.
The survey has a margin of error of about three per cent in either direction.
