Turnout can be very important for candidates from small municipalities, writes city journalist Marja Salomaa in her analysis.
Cousin visited the village for advice on voting for a regional election candidate. He lives in a small municipality in his welfare area, where it is feared that only candidates from the city center will be admitted to the regional council.
Fear of the roaring power of the central cities has repeatedly emerged in the run-up to the regional elections.
Association Manager of the Association of Finnish Municipalities Marianne Pekola-Sjöblom says more than half of the population lives in the downtown area of many welfare areas.
“There is a high probability that the big cities in the regions will get the majority of the council seats and that in the larger welfare areas at least some of the smaller municipalities will be left without their own representative in the regional council,” says Pekola-Sjöblom.
So if you want to secure the services of your home municipality, who would be the surest passer in your municipality?
There are no simple answers to this question. Even voting for the brightest politician in the village guarantees nothing if his party does not succeed well enough.
Situation still not entirely hopeless for small or medium-sized municipalities.
Both turnout and nomination play a major role in the outcome.
For example, in the welfare area of Vantaa and Kerava, Vantaa has a population almost ten times that of Kerava. In the regional election, Vantaa residents could roll Kerava completely because there are no municipal quotas in the election.
But from election to election, the people of Vantaa have been Finland’s lazest voters and the people of Kerava more enthusiastic than their neighbors.
In the last municipal election, the turnout in Vantaa was 48.4%. Kerava has generally reached 56 per cent, although in the last municipal election the turnout fell to 53 per cent.
If elections are perceived as relevant, small municipalities can do surprisingly well in relation to their population.
“In the 2008 municipal elections, several councils were elected after the municipal associations. It was then seen that the success of the smaller unions was good. They got even more delegates to the new councils than the population would have expected, ”says Pekola-Sjöblom.
All elected regional commissioners must represent the entire region, not just their own municipality, Pekola-Sjöblom points out.
The parties have made different choices in their election advertising. For example, the SDP and Basic Finns do not flag the candidates’ home communities on the party’s website.
“We thought we didn’t want a broken election, and that’s why the party’s website doesn’t mention the hometown,” explains the chairman of the Uusimaa district of basic Finns. Jari Immonen. Candidates’ own ads may show domicile.
Read more: Make Helsingin Sanomat’s election machine
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Fear of the roaring power of the central cities has repeatedly emerged in the run-up to the regional elections.
Candidate layout the importance of the first regional elections is great because no one really knows what the best election tactics would be. The parties have attracted well-known candidates or senior officials to their lists who are already familiar with previous elections.
Candidates for the election include three incumbent mayors and several mayors, four mayors, and almost every other chairman of a municipal or city government. For example, the chairman of the Espoo City Council Henrik Vuornos (Kok) and Chairman of the Vantaa City Government, Member of Parliament Sari Multala (kok) are nominated. Also the mayor of Tuusula Kalle Ikkelä (kok) seeks this new position of trust.
A comparison of candidates made by the Association of Finnish Municipalities as many as 79 percent of candidates ran for council in the last municipal election. In 46 municipalities, all current regional election candidates were candidates in the municipal elections.
Many of the MPs also sit on the councils of their home communities. Based on the Association of Finnish Municipalities’ candidate report, more than a hundred MPs are also running in the regional elections.
“Elections are foreign, and then it will be easier for voters to find those familiar candidates,” Coalition Liaison Officer Elina Laavi says.
Read more: HS closely follows the final stage of the regional election campaign: Election report tells about the most interesting phenomena
Oman instead of the home community, voters can emphasize the candidate’s qualifications. An expert in their field can also be found in the candidates of the neighboring municipality.
According to the HS survey, about one-fifth of the candidates have a background in the military or rescue sector.
Read more: An estimated one-fifth of the candidates in the regional elections have a background in the military or rescue sector – Expertise is useful, but on the other hand they have “their own cow in the ditch,” says the professor.
According to Lavi, there are more professionals in social and health care and rescue than in the previous elections. Regional councils also need experts in economics, IT technology or procurement, Laavi thinks.
Executive Director of the Social Democrats in Uusimaa Jouni Gustafsson says that in addition to doctors, their candidates include nurses, community nurses, social workers and representatives of patients’ organizations.
He has also found that by no means all voters apply for candidates in their own municipality.
“In the constituency, people have asked if they can vote for non-local candidates,” Gustafsson says.
The common wish of Lavi, Gustafsson and Immonen is to elect people to the new regional councils who are interested in the future of the entire welfare area.
Read more: Advance voting in the regional elections began – Leppävirta also voted on the bus: “Now the situation is relatively good here, but it would not get worse
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