SUNDAY NIGHT, updated 21:30: Municipal Election Results - National Coalition predicted to become largest party
Big win for True Finns, while Social Democrats and Centre both lose ground
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Votes are still being counted in Sunday's municipal elections, but at 21:20 the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE published its forecast for the result, placing the National Coalition Party at the top of the pile, with slightly more than 22.5% of the vote, an improvement of some 0.7%-points from four years ago.
The opposition Social Democrats (21.4%) were expected to take second place ahead of the Centre Party (21.1%), with both of them losing votes relative to the situation in 2004. If the forecast holds true, this will be the first time that the NCP has held the position of largest party in the country at municipal elections.
The biggest winner on the night, by a large margin, looks set to be the populist True Finns, who have seen their vote surge from less than 1% to more than 5%, eclipsing both the Swedish People's Party and the Christian Democrats.
The count continues, and at present the Centre Party holds sway, as results come in from smaller rural communities where their candidates traditionally do well.
The Left Alliance is forecast to remain the fourth-largest party despite losing votes, ahead of the Greens, who are expected to collect around 8.5%, with a gain of around 1%-point from 2004.
Those watching on television in real-time may wonder at these numbers, particularly in the case of the Centre Party and the Greens, who traditionally enjoy contrasting fortunes in the early stages of the count. At one point the Centrists held more than 25.5% of the votes counted, while the Greens bottomed out at around 6%.
Overall voter turnout was up by around two to three percentage points across the country to reach 61.3%.
In some areas with significant issues that galvanised voters, for example municipal mergers or a recent significant incident - for instance the water supply problems in Nokia, near Tampere - the turnout was up by as much as 5%-points.
Results after advance votes at 20:00 (figures in parentheses show change from 2004 - final figures)
Social Democrats 22.7 (-1.4)
Centre Party 22.2 (- 0.6)
National Coalition 22.4% (+0.5%-points)
Left Alliance 9.7 (+0.1)
Greens 6.6 (-0.8)
True Finns 5.2 (+4.3)
Christian Democrats 4.3 (+0.3)
Swedish People's Party 3.6 (-1.6)
Independent 2.3 (-1.0)
Other 0.9 (- 0.0)
Roughly 25% of those eligible to vote exercised their right in advance. The general rule is that the advance votes favour the Centre Party (many of whose voters are in rural areas) and conversely give a lower barometer reading for the Greens (and to a lesser extent also for the Social Democrats and National Coalition Party) than the overall result indicates.
In any event, these early numbers suggest a big win for the populists of the True Finns and also a poor night in prospect for the Centre Party, who are unlikely to secure the top place overall with a start like this.
It remains to be seen from whom the True Finns have taken voters, but the general early consensus is that it is more likely to be from the SDP and Centre Party than from the conservatives of the NCP.
This year's election forecasts are slightly complicated by the weather: nobody quite knows how the electorate will have behaved on Sunday, when the dreadful autumn weather up and down the country was hardly conducive to going out to vote.
Full results are expected by around 11 p.m.
More on this subject:
 MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS, SUNDAY 23:45: National Coalition Party largest party, True Finns big winners, gains for Greens
Helsingin Sanomat
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