The center clearly lost its leadership positions in densely populated and rural municipalities.
Spring the most dramatic news graphic of the parliamentary elections showed how the previously largely centrist green map of the most popular parties in the constituencies was colored basic Finnish blue.
STT found out what the change looked like when viewed through municipalities and cities and where the parties gained or lost their support.
In the previous elections, the center took the lead in four large constituencies out of the twelve constituencies in mainland Finland, and the Basic Finns in one. This spring, the center was no longer in the lead in any of the constituencies, while the Fundamental Finns came out on top in six.
Even at the municipal level, the change is huge: in 2019, the center still reaped the harvest of its rural party heritage and was number one in 173 municipalities, which is more than three times more than the second-placed Sdp, which had 46 top places. Basic Finns received the most votes in 35 municipalities.
This year, the center was at the top in only 104 municipalities, while the Kärkisijas of basic Finns almost tripled to 99 municipalities.
The first places in the municipalities do not directly tell about the power relations between the parties, because the power relations arise from the number of MPs elected by electoral district. The first places, however, are one way of looking at what kind of places the parties’ support comes from.
Major part of the center’s difficulties stem from the fact that its support varies greatly depending on whether one is in the countryside or in the city, sums up the election researcher and doctor of political science Jussi Westinenwho works as a research manager at Taloustuktuikma.
The center is popular mainly in areas with few inhabitants and therefore few votes in the division. The support of basic Finns is more evenly distributed, and it creates a big difference between the parties, which is difficult for the center to close.
“If you look at these elections and divide Finland into parts, (basic Finns) don’t really have a weak point. The weakest result is in the cities of southern Finland, but even that is by no means weak: south of the Pori-Tampere-Lahti line, they got 17 percent urban support. And in northern Finland, if you compare it to the 2010 elections, the Basic Finns made huge strides forward, which of course came at the expense of the center,” says Westinen.
Jussi Westinen
Only the inner city areas, i.e. the centers of large cities, have been difficult for basic Finns to really break into, says Westinen. As regions, they are important because about 40 percent of Finns live in them, which means that they have a huge number of votes.
In all of the votes for the 2023 elections, 72 percent were cast in urban municipalities, 15 percent in densely populated municipalities, and 13 percent in rural municipalities. The importance of cities is shown by the fact that compared to 2019, the center lost 37,000 votes in cities, 15,000 votes in densely populated municipalities and 23,000 votes in rural municipalities. Basic Finns, on the other hand, got 43,000 more votes in the cities, 21,000 in densely populated municipalities and 18,000 new votes in the countryside.
In city-like municipalities, the city center lost 7 first places, keeping one in Tornio. Basic Finns took first places from the center in Oulu, Kajaani, Rovaniemi and Seinäjoki, among others, and increased the number of first places in cities by 4 to a total of 12.
In rural municipalities, such as Somero, Petäjävede and Joutsa, Perussuomalaiset almost quadrupled its first place from 14 to 55, while the city center dropped from 135 first places to 89.
In the densely populated municipalities between these types of municipalities, such as Mynämää, Laukaa and Kurika, the Basic Finns and the center practically switched places: the center’s 30 first places shrank to 14, and the basic Finns’ 13 first places swelled to 32.
In part the age structure of the center explains the party’s difficulties. Although its support is still strong among retirees, according to Westinen, among those born in the 80s and after, the attraction of the city center has shrunk to a really weak level.
“One of the center’s biggest problems is what it represents and how difficult it is for new generations to understand. The center’s self-understanding of what it wants to be is such a progressive, civilized party that cherishes a sustainable relationship with nature, which is in the primitive spirit of the cause of the poor. However, it is known from studies that many Finns place it a little to the right of the center and its profile is reduced to running rural affairs.”
Likewise, continuous urbanization reduces the population from the traditional support areas of the city center and increases the number of residents in cities where the center has difficulty gaining support.
According to Westinen, the broad arc of support for the center has been pointing downwards since the beginning of the 2000s, even though the center’s opposition period Jyrki Katainen (kok) while groping for the sixpack government and Juha Sipilä the election as chairman of the center made the party the largest even in the elections of 2015. The fact that in this millennium the party has only previously been in the opposition during the election periods of 1999–2003 and 2011–2015 also weighs heavily on the center.
“It is quite a significant stumbling block, and especially the fact that the center was the only party in the last two governments, which implemented very different policies from very different government bases,” says Westinen.
Is it So the time for the sunset in the city center, which has been delayed for decades, is finally coming? Despite the numbers of worms, Westinen is not convinced.
“The game markers in the setting couldn’t be much better: they can criticize both the basic Finns and the coalition from the opposition. Now it’s pretty much a matter of whether the center is able to be rhetorically sharp enough,” he says.
According to Westinen, in the party support surveys, the party changes from the center were fairly evenly divided between the Koumum and Basic Finns.
“Focusing only on basic Finns is problematic from the party’s point of view. In terms of the development of support for the center, it is also important how to get back voters who have switched to the coalition.”
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