SDP narrowly leads in parliamentary polls with 40 seats

Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue (Social Democratic Party of Finland-SDP) narrowly led in the parliamentary polls held on Sunday bagging 40 seats, just one seat higher than its nearest competitor Perussuomalaiset (Finns Party).

Kansallinen Kokoomus (National Coalition Party) secured third place in the close race election with 38 seats followed by Suomen Keskusta (Centre Party of Finland) 31 seats, Vihreä Liitto (Green League) 20 seats, Vasemmistoliito (Left Alliance) 16 seats, Suomenruotsalainenkansanpuolue (Swedish People’s Party of Finland-RKP) nine seats, SuomenKristillisdemokraatit (Christian Democrats of Finland) five seats and others took two seats in the 200-seat parliament.

According to the preliminary partial results, a total of 3097515 votes were cast in the elections, which is 72 percent to the total votes. Some 19023 votes, however, was rejected on various grounds, sources at the Ministry of Justice said.

SDP bagged 545544 votes, which is 17.7% of the total votes, followed by, Perussuomalaiset 538731 (17.5%), Kokoomus 523446 (17%), Keskusta (13.8%), Vihreät 353654 (11.5%), Vasemmistoliito 251254 (8.2%), Suomenruotsalainenkansanpuolue 139428 (4.5%) and SuomenKristillisdemokraatit 120039 (3.9%).

A total of 2468 candidates, 1,432 male and 1,036 female, from 13 electoral districts in the country contested the polls.

A total of 19 registered political parties and 136 independent candidates took part in the elections this year.

Twenty-two lawmakers were elected from Helsinki electoral district, 35 from Uusimaa, 17 from Varsinais-Suomi, 8 from Satakunta, 14 from Häme, 19 from Pirkanmaa , 17 from Southeast, 16 Savo-Karelia, 16 from Vaasa, 10 from Central Finland, 18 from Oulu, 7 from Lapland and 1 from Åland electoral district.

Earlier, a total of 1534642 people had already cast votes during the advance voting that took place from April 3 to April 9 in the country and from April 3 to April 6 abroad. The number is about 36.5 % percent of the total voters.

The voting was held in 1,943 polling centres in the country.