Finnish parliamentary election – 14 April 2019

[Tender Branson]

PS now gain 1% in Helsinki compared with 2015 (was stable earlier on).

PS lose 2.4% in Uusima suburbs compared with 2015, they were losing 4% earlier on.

This suggests the Election Day vote is strongly PS and could end with no loss there.

[DavidB.]

Yeah, seems as if PS may gain, not lose. What coalitions with PS and SDP are possible if PS top the poll? Together with KOK will be too right-wing for the SDP, but I doubt the Greens and Left Alliance would be willing to govern with PS... and Center will definitely not go for another round in the government, I suppose, even though SDP-Finns-Center is ideologically compatible.

[Helsinkian]

The Uusimaa suburbs (Espoo and Vantaa) were the core support areas of Timo Soini, who led the Finns Party until 2017 and then defected to Blue Reform. He isn't running now. It's conceivable that he had a group of personal supporters who would not vote for the Finns Party without him.

[jaichind]

I am confused on how the Finns vote share could be going up as more of Helsinki comes in ..

[DavidB.]

I am confused on how the Finns vote share could be going up as more of Helsinki comes in ..

I don't think it will be going up anymore. But SDP will go down even further. And it seems as if PS are doing pretty well (13-14%) in the Helsinki e-day vote while overperforming their national score in Uusimaa by about the same margin as in 2015.

[Tender Branson]

I am confused on how the Finns vote share could be going up as more of Helsinki comes in ..

Math.

The Election Day vote for PS is stronger relative to what was already counted ...

[jaichind]

I am confused on how the Finns vote share could be going up as more of Helsinki comes in ..

Math.

The Election Day vote for PS is stronger relative to what was already counted ...

Ok so even in Helsinki the Finns vote over-performed early voting right by such a margin that overcame the effect of later reporting of Helsinki to the total.  Wow.

[Aboa]

Yeah, seems as if PS may gain, not lose. What coalitions with PS and SDP are possible if PS top the poll? Together with KOK will be too right-wing for the SDP, but I doubt the Greens and Left Alliance would be willing to govern with PS... and Center will definitely not go for another round in the government, I suppose, even though SDP-Finns-Center is ideologically compatible.

Even if Finns win most seats I still think SDP (or NCP) ends up forming government without them.

[Helsinkian]

Also noteworthy: PS+SIN would have been the biggest party had they been together.

[FredLindq]

Finns and SDP now separated by less than 9,000 votes (0.3 %) as 15.4% of the vote remains to be counted.

6400 votes now. 10% more to be counted.

[DavidB.]

If SDP still top the poll it will be because of PS' underperformance in Uusimaa. Their performance in Helsinki seems to be impressive.

YLE now has both SDP and PS at 40 seats.

[Aboa]

NCP leader Orpo just seemed to rule out cooperation with Halla-aho.

[Diouf]

Was no one from Blue Reform close to having a personal vote, that could have given the party a seat anywhere? Or was Soini the only one who could have pulled that off?

[DavidB.]

This is looking like an absolutely awful result for the SDP even if they top the poll, pretty comparable to the "win" of Swedish S in 2014. Their second-worst result ever. If their highs look like this, I don't think they want to know what their lows may look like.

[Helsinkian]

Was no one from Blue Reform close to having a personal vote, that could have given the party a seat anywhere? Or was Soini the only one who could have pulled that off?

Their top candidate seems to be at the 51st place in Uusimaa (in the comparative index) which has 36 seats. So it's not very close.

[Helsinkian]

Jussi Halla-aho will have the most personal votes. Li Andersson (VAS leader) will have the second most personal votes.

[Helsinkian]

YLE is saying there will be 83 new MPs.

[FredLindq]

4800 votes with 6.9% left.

Thats 695 votes per percentage.

[DavidB.]

PS have declined in seat % for the first time, to 17.6%.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Given how absurdly fragmented the Finnish party system is and that Finnish politics tends to operate on a basically consensual model, I'm not sure whether it matters that much who does or doesn't top the poll. Still, the surge in support during the campaign for PS has to count as one of the most effective uses of culture war politics in Europe in recent memory.

[PetrSokol]

Given how absurdly fragmented the Finnish party system is and that Finnish politics tends to operate on a basically consensual model, I'm not sure whether it matters that much who does or doesn't top the poll. Still, the surge in support during the campaign for PS has to count as one of the most effective uses of culture war politics in Europe in recent memory.

How do you mean this?

[Double Carpet]

Do all the votes get counted today (or very early Monday morning) or are there eg postal/overseas etc ballots that don't get counted until later?

Thanks!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This is looking like an absolutely awful result for the SDP even if they top the poll, pretty comparable to the "win" of Swedish S in 2014. Their second-worst result ever. If their highs look like this, I don't think they want to know what their lows may look like.

The SDP is very much a party of smaller towns; always was. Given longterm population movements this is a little bit problematic and means that the party has undergone a pretty substantial structural retrenchment in the scope and scale of its support. This is actually a bigger problem than the fact that its electorate is older than average; that, in itself, is not automatically a problem.

[DavidB.]

PS will improve on their 2015 result in raw votes. With 97% in they are now less than 100 votes down.

[Helsinkian]

Do all the votes get counted today (or very early Monday morning) or are there eg postal/overseas etc ballots that don't get counted until later?

Thanks!

All are counted today. Then they are, per routine, all counted again early next week, and that will be the final result. Usually there aren't many changes in the second count.