Voter support for the opposition Finns Party has nosedived in Yle’s latest monthly survey.
The Riikka Purra-led party received 15 percent backing in the parliamentary election poll, a drop of 3.3 percentage points from the last comparable survey.
However, the party remained in third place overall, although it has fallen further behind Prime Minister Sanna Marin‘s Social Democratic Party (SDP), in second place on 19 percent, and the opposition National Coalition Party (NCP), led by Petteri Orpo, which retained its place at the top of the poll on 21.2 percent support.
“Finns Party support is currently leaking to many parties: in particular to the NCP, Movement Now and the Power Belongs to the People party (VKK),” Research Director Tuomo Turja of polling research firm Taloustutkimus told Yle.
Other regular supporters of the party seem to have moved to the sidelines during the latest research survey period, choosing not to reveal their party affiliations. This may be because the main theme of the regional elections, held in January, was social and healthcare services, which is not a core agenda for Finns Party supporters.
“Support for the Finns Party has been declining throughout January. It seems that the interest among its supporters in politics in general has diminished,” Turja said.
The Finns Party garnered just 11.1 percent support in Finland’s first ever regional elections, a significant drop from more recent elections. The party finished fourth overall, well behind the traditional top three parties of the NCP, SDP and the Centre Party.
Greens continue to lose support
The latest voter survey also revealed another dip in support for the Greens, which has seen its backing among voters steadily decrease over the past year.
The party, with interim leader Iiris Suomela at the helm while Maria Ohisalo is on maternity leave, saw its support drop below 10 percent in this month’s poll.
According to Turja, the party’s poor performance in the regional elections (which did not involve its stronghold of Helsinki) and subsequent post-election debates may have had an impact on voter sentiment as attention turns to next year’s parliamentary elections. Support for the Greens clearly fell in the weeks following the regional election, where the party received just 7.4 percent of the vote.
“It is now quite visible that the Greens are losing support to the Left Alliance. The leak is clearly larger than in previous months,” Turja said.
The Left Alliance, a government coalition partner alongside the Greens, saw its support among voters rise by one percentage point in the latest poll to 9 percent.
Greens supporters are also moving into the SDP camp, Turja added, as there is significant fluctuation in the so-called ‘red-green’ bloc.
Cautious signs of recovery in support for Centre
The Centre Party’s strong showing at the regional elections was not reflected in the results of the parliamentary poll, with the party receiving 12.7 percent support.
“Support for the Centre seemed to rise slightly after the regional elections. In poll interviews after the election, the party received about 14 percent support, but that is not visible throughout the overall polling period,” Turja said.
The party had secured 19.2 percent of votes the regional election, finishing in third place overall. Regional elections were not held in Helsinki, where support for the party has traditionally been lower than elsewhere in Finland.
Overall support for the government coalition parties was 55.1 percent, which has remained fairly constant throughout PM Marin’s term.
Among the smaller parties, Power Belongs to the People saw its support increase by 0.5 percent.
Taloustutkimus interviewed 2,727 people between 9 January and 1 February 2022 for the survey. Altogether 1,983 voters revealed their party affiliation, and the margin of error was +/- 1.8 percentage points.
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