| Oululaiset Shun Finlandīs Move to the Right |
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| By Staff Writer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tuesday, 20 March 2007 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 The National Coalition, led by Jyrki Katainen, were the big winner's in Sunday's election. While the rest of Finland moved to right – with big gains for the conservative opposition National Coalition and big losses for the coalition-governing Social Democrats – election night in Oulu delivered no shift of any kind. In terms of party seats in Parliament, Oulu voted in exactly the same way as it did in 2003. Four years ago, Oulu elected nine Centre Party members, three National Coalition members, three Left Alliance, two Social Democrats and one Green. This time round it did exactly the same thing except a few MPs stood down and were replaced. Also two Centre Party MPs who did stand lost their seats to other Centre Party candidates. In Finnish elections, parties gain seats in a large electoral area according to their percentage of the vote in that area. This form of PR means that a party’s seat tally in the 200-seat Parliament does not always fairly reflect its percentage of the vote in the nation. People vote for an individual candidate on the party list meaning that sitting MPs and even party leaders are not guaranteed re-election. Elsewhere, the Green Party leader failed to be re-elected. As in the rest of the country, the vote for certain minority parties increased in Oulu. The percentage of the vote for the Anti-EU party the True Finns increased to 3.5 percent and an MP was almost elected. The religious Christian Democrats, who have seats on Oulu City Council, scored 3.2 percent and the ‘Independence Party’ got 0.6 percent. In the whole of Finland, there was a general move towards conservative parties. The National Coalition Party – which advocates liberalising the Finnish economy – were the big winners of the night, gaining ten seats; the Swedish People’s Party (which represents the traditionally influential Swedish-speaking minority) gained one seat and True Finns – which calls for tougher immigration controls and leaving the EU – gained two seats. However, it’s percentage of the vote increased more markedly. The Green Party also gained one seat and the Christian Democrats remained on seven seats. By contrast, the SDP lost eight seats, the Centre Party lost four seats and the Left Alliance lost two seats. Both the Centre Party and the SDP – as well as the Swedish People’s Party – were in the government coalition before the election. The election has left the Centre Party – led by Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen – and the National Coalition almost neck and neck in terms of seats and percentage of the vote. The Centre Party has fifty-one seats to the Coalition’s fifty. The result means that the Centre Party are able to begin coalition negotiations which could lead to a relatively right wing government, leaving the SDP in opposition for the first time in twelve years. MPs will elect a Prime Minister to lead this government on 17th April. The current Prime Minister received the second highest popular vote in the election. Former National Coalition leader and Presidential runner-up Sauli Niinisto received a huge 60,498 votes where he stood while Vanhanen got 24,037 and True Finns leader Timo Soini got 19,690. The election saw more women elected to the Eduskunta (Finnish Parliament) than ever before – 84 out of 200 MPs. No immigrants or Finns from immigrant backgrounds were elected. However, more stood than in previous years and Zahra Abdullah, a Helsinki councillor, was very nearly elected for the Green Party. At one point it looked certain that she would go through but she just missed out. There were a small number of immigrant candidates in Oulu such as Rev’d Patrick Dickson, from South Africa, for the Christian Democrats, who came fourth out of their eighteen candidates with 378 votes. Dimitrios Mizaras stood in Oulu for the Finnish Communist Party and took thirty-eight votes.National Result
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