Election result | Raven communism died, the center lacked voice rakes: This is how the experts analyzed the result

“The elections the biggest surprise is that there were no surprises”, says Jukka Manninen.

He works at Ellun Kanoi and is the former planning manager of the coalition and one of the former and current background influencers of the parties interviewed by HS in February about the election arrangements.

HS now called the same influencers and asked what decided the election.

“The seed of the election result has already been sown in the parliamentary elections of spring 2019, which means that quite traditionally the opposition won. People often order change and now we got it,” he says Milja Henttonen.

He is a senior adviser at communications agency Miltton and a former assistant to Green ministers.

“It is interesting that in Finland there was talk for quite a long time about the decentralization of power and the fact that soon we will only have medium-sized parties. Now the three big parties have been able to increase their support in two consecutive elections, and it seems that we have returned to the time of the big three”, Henttonen estimates.

“Fundamental Finns and the center have just switched places.”

But what decided the election in favor of basic Finns and the coalition?

The selection of candidates, the campaigns and the layout of the elections – that is, the fact that Finns were more tuned in to the prime ministerial election than before, and in the wake of the campaigns a kind of bloc division emerged, he estimates Mari Kokko.

He is the CEO of the Cooperative Activity Center Pellervo, who has previously assisted several center-based ministers in his career.

“For example, the basic Finns had stronger lists than before and their candidates ran a good campaign, while the center has a lack of electoral skills. Kokoomus had versatile and strong lists, especially in southern Finland, and Sdp also managed to get people who think differently, i.e. diversity, into the lists”, Kokko assessed.

“Lastly, when the prime ministerial exams started, in which only these three biggest took part, I did experience this in the election fields. The atmosphere in the other parties’ tents became flat.”

Elections the losers were the centre, the greens and the left alliance. The catastrophic election result of the Left Alliance was not predicted in advance, unlike the Greens and the Center.

The party has implemented a generational change in the 2010s, but Jukka Manninen estimates that at the same time it has hung too much “on one card”.

“And the card is what Lee Andersson represent. What separates the new parliamentary groups of the Left Alliance and the Greens from each other?” Manninen ponders.

“The municipal elections were already a warning when the party lost its traditional stronghold, Kemi. Now the lights also go out in Satakunta, Central Finland and Lapland.”

At the same time, the result in Helsinki improved, but it did not lead to better support.

Also Esa Suominen notes that “chimney leftism and corpulent communism” died. The “ay-boys of the old union” disappeared from the group of the left-wing union.

Suominen is the chairman of the board of communications agency Rud Pedersen Public Affairs and a former assistant to the Danish Minister of Defense.

“In Lapland, even the first dropout was not a left-wing ally, it went badly in the Oulu electoral district… The hard left-wing alliance in the North is over. It’s a really big deal in terms of political history,” says Suominen.

“The production of chimney leftists has been stopped, the more moderate ay people are in the Sdp and a large part of the Danunarians support the basic Finns.”

Elections after, a picture has been shared on social media that shows how the green constituencies in the center turned into basic Finnish blue.

Milja Henttonen points out that the regions are also different: in the constituency of Helsinki, the support of basic Finns decreased.

According to Jukka Manninen, in the city center “you don’t dare to say the ugly d-word”. That word is demographics.

Manninen reckons that the party did get its party going, because there is little trickle down to the municipal elections.

The only problem is that there are fewer and fewer of those.

“According to Statistics Finland’s population forecast, by the 2027 election, 100,000 of the generation born after the wars will have left. Whether the center is in the government or in the opposition, 20–30,000 voters will have permanently left the party by the next election,” Manninen estimates.

The center did not address mobile voters, nor did it have loud voice rakes.

“Only Antti Kaikkonen received more than 10,000 votes. Politics is personified, and it is easy for mobile voters to take a stand on politics through people, whether they are Instagram, Tiktok or YouTube characters,” Manninen reflects.

Minja Koskela (left) is followed on Instagram, Miko Bergbom (ps) is known on Tiktok and Youtube, and for a long time Youtube has also had, for example, Hi Sammallahti (cook).

“If there are no such characters, it will be very difficult to manage the voters who are moving in this fight.”

Manninen reminds that “one hundred percent of the votes” are distributed in elections, but not always the same one hundred percent: new Finns come of voting age, some die.

“Fundamental Finns did not slyly and unfairly woo voters from the center, but the center is not a relevant factor for these people.”

The greens it is too one-sided to blame so-called tactical voting for the loss, according to all the influencers interviewed by HS.

“Votes have to be earned. You can’t be second best to the voter, you have to be the best,” Milja Henttonen sums up.

“The Greens and the center have one thing in common, that the vision and direction of politics is lost. On the other hand, it is also difficult to profile or bring out one’s own themes in the economic election of the right-left division”, Mari Kokko assesses.

Both Esa Suominen and Jukka Manninen estimate that there has also been a significant leak to the right in the greens.

“If a right-wing government were to form now, the greens could have a social liberal corner from which to try to pick up votes,” Suominen estimates.