Poll suggests Greens will outscore SDP in Helsinki municipal elections

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The Greens may become the second-largest party on the Helsinki City Council after the October municipal elections, suggests a poll carried out for commercial broadcaster MTV3.
      The results of the Taloustutkimus study forecast an additional three seats for the Greens and a similar loss for the Social Democrats, who currently occupy second place behind the National Coalition Party.
      The current alignment of the three largest parties in Helsinki is NCP 27, SDP 20, Greens 16. The Helsinki City Council has a total of 85 members.
     
The interview poll also predicts three additional seats for the populist True Finns (currently they have only one member), with one-seat losses for the Left Alliance, the Swedish People’s Party, and the Centre Party.
      These three parties had 8, 6, and 4 council-members respectively at the last election in 2004.
     
Interviews were carried out on just over 1,000 persons between September 15th and 28th.
      The margin of error is 2.9% in either direction.
     
Municipal elections will be held in Finland on October 26th. Advance voting runs from October 15th to 21st, and participation in the election is open to all residents of Finland who have attained the age of 18 by the election day, including foreigners.
      Citizens of EU countries as well as of Iceland and Norway can vote in their municipality of residence, if they have lived there at least fifty-one days prior to the election.
      The same rules apply for other foreign nationals, with the additional proviso that they are required to have been resident in Finland for an uninterrupted period of two years. Details from the Justice Ministry site.


Links:
  Helsinki City Council
  Municipal Elections 2008 (Ministry of Justice)

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