Poll: Gap between three largest parties continues to shrink
Centre Party rebounds from post-Presidential election dip
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Gaps in support for the Social Democratic Party, the Centre Party, and the National Coalition Party are narrower than before, shows a poll commissioned by Helsingin Sanomat and conducted by Suomen Gallup in August and September this year.
If Parliamentary elections were held now, the Social Democrats would get the support of 24 percent of voters, while the Centre Party would get 23.1 percent, and the National Coalition Party would get 22.6 percent support, the poll says.
Support for the various parties has not been so close in any survey since October 2000. Changes in the poll are nevertheless slight compared with June.
The margin of error in the survey is two percentage points in either direction with respect to the largest parties.
The Social Democrats remain the largest party, although the SDP has lost 1.1 percentage points of its support during the summer, and 1.6 points during the whole years.
At the same time the Centre Party has won back one percentage point, after reaching a low point after the Presidential elections.
Support for the opposition National Coalition Party has stabilised this year at 22.5 percent. A year ago public support for the party was one percentage point lower than in the latest poll.
There has been little change in the popularity of the smaller parties.
The Left Alliance (8.9 percent) and the Christian Democrats (3.9 percent) were unchanged from last June. The Greens saw their support rise by 0.1 percentage points to 8.8 percent, and the Swedish People’s Party gained 0.2 percent, with its support at 4.9 percent.
Support for the True Finns dipped to 1.9 percent, 0.3 percentage points less than in June.
Helsingin Sanomat
