Survey: Support for Social Democratic Party drops slightly

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A recent survey commissioned by the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE indicates that the support for the Social Democratic Party of Finland (SDP) has declined slightly over the first weeks of the current year.
      While showing that 25.2 percent of voters support SDP, the survey suggests a drop of one percentage point since January. Nevertheless, the corresponding figure for the previous year was more or less the same, and SDP remains the largest political party in Finland.
     
Support for the Centre Party was the second largest in the poll with 22.8 percent. Compared with January, the rating has increased somewhat. However, the party’s support dropped by almost two percentage points from the situation in February 2005.
     
The opposition National Coalition Party came third with 20.9 percent, suggesting a slight increase in popularity compared with the corresponding figures for both January 2006 and February 2005.
      As regards the smaller parties, the Left Alliance showed a support of 9.4 percent and the Green League 9.1 percent. While both the Swedish People’s Party and the Christian Democrats received support from 4.5 percent of the respondents, the True Finns gained only 2.7 percent.
      The number of interviewees in the survey was around 1,900, and the margin of error is reported to be plus/minus two percentage points.
     
With the presidential elections now out of the way, after incumbent Tarja Halonen's relatively narrow victory over challenger Sauli Niinistö, the political parties' focus is shifting around to next year's parliamentary elections, 12 months from now.
      The moderate conservative National Coalition Party, buoyed by the good showing from Niinistö, have declared the aim of securing 24 per cent of the popular vote in elections to Parliament.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  National Coalition Party seeks 24 percent share in parliamentary elections (20.2.2006)

Helsingin Sanomat