Party secretaries say SDP and Conservatives' dispute over services was key to elections

National Coalition Party intend to exploit their win to the full

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As election night on Sunday drew to a close, there was a degree of unanimity in party offices from the left to the right: the election outcome had been decided in the final week by the spat which emerged between the Social Democrats and the conservatives of the National Coalition Party over how best to provide communal services.
      This issue, say the others, threw both these parties into higher profile than the surrounding political groupings, and they reaped the benefit in increased shares of the vote.
      The privatisation and outsourcing debate, which occasionally ran hot in what was otherwise a lukewarm election campaign, activated SDP and National Coalition supporters, suggests NCP party secretary Harri Jaskari.
      "The SDP and the National Coalitionists stood up and challenged one another. The Centre Party got sandwiched in between in the discussion and emerged as the fallers in the race. The tactic of not having an opinion about anything in particular did not work for them", went on Jaskari.
      He says that the National Coalition Party, currently in opposition, intends to extract the maximum possible benefit from their election progress, and that the next step will be to find for the party a suitable Presidential candidate.
     
The Centre Party had consciously chosen the election tactic of not going for the jugular of either their government partners the Social Democrats or the opposition conservatives, admitted party secretary Eero Lankia. In the background to this was the belief, one expressed strongly by Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, that communal politics is about cooperation and consensus.
      "Our campaign lacked a certain amount of edge and bite, and we did not completely manage to galvanise the party’s supporters. This sort of gap was there, if you want to be wise after the event", agreed Lankia.
      A more widespread view within the Centre Party ranks was that the machine was not asked to perform at full power, since these elections were not "a matter of life and death", which the Centrists believe they were for the National Coalition leadership. The conservatives have been in danger of slipping behind the other two big parties in the country, and needed to staunch the bleeding.
      "At least in the Greater Helsinki area, our election advertising paled alongside that of the conservatives", said Lankia.
     
The last few days of the campaign did not necessarily decide the outcome, but the SDP won through their defensive stand on basic municipal services, argues SDP party secretary Eero Heinäluoma.
      Heinäluoma believes the Centrists’ defeat stemmed from relying too much on the figure of party chairman Prime Minister Vanhanen during the campaign, and that the party said little or nothing at all about actual municipal issues.
      "The Centre Party line never really took shape. In addition, the Centrists lost the bonus in support they had accumulated during their years in opposition. The party took a hit in its own strong areas [rural Finland], and this speaks of a slight protest mentality", said Heinäluoma.
     
In the large parties in particular there seemed to be no lack of Schadenfreude at the setbacks experienced by the Greens, who for instance saw their second-place in the Helsinki City Council disappear as they lost four seats.
      "The Greens will have to learn a lesson from these elections", commented party secretary Ari Heikkinen, and he put the blame for the losses partly on the shoulders of the competing parties.
      "The campaign seemed rather brutal and aggressive for quite some time, and it came as a surprise to us", Heikkinen said. He believes the other parties managed to create in voters’ minds an image of the Greens as a party turning towards the right.
      "We did not pick up on it quickly enough, or realise how systematic and planned it was", he said.
     
The Swedish People’s Party, the junior member in the governing coalition, also enjoyed a small advance. Their vote nudged upwards by only 0.1%-points, but the delight felt was much greater.
      "The mobilisation of our voters worked. This can definitely be compared against the victories of the SDP and the National Coalition", claimed party secretary Berth Sundström. She pointed out that the SPP succeeded in lifting its overall votes total by around 10,000, even though the party had candidates in only 62 municipalities out of a total of 444.
     
The Left Alliance party secretary Aulis Ruuth found a couple of reasons for the party’s continued decline in support.
      "Our campaign investments were relatively modest. We did not have the wherewithal for a larger campaign."
      The Left Alliance also did not put up any candidates at all in 26 communities where it had ballot representation four years ago.
      Ruuth was by no means the only party secretary to lament the fact that it is very difficult these days to find people willing to shoulder the resonsibility for local government in provincial municipalities with a shrinking population and external migration.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Social Democrats emerge on top in municipal elections (25.10.2004)

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