SDP still most popular, popularity of major 5 parties’ slides

The ruling Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue (Social Democratic Party of Finland-SDP), the biggest component of the five-party alliance government, remains the most popular party in the country, although its popularity has declined from that in the previous month, according to the report of the monthly survey conducted by the national broadcaster Yle.

The Yle published the survey results on Thursday, where the popularity of all the major five political parties – Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue, the Perussuomalaiset (Finns Party), the Kansallinen Kokoomus (National Coalition Party-NCP), the Suomen Keskusta (Centre Party of Finland) and the Vihreä Liitto (Green League) declined.

The support of the Vasemmistoliitto (Left Alliance) and the Suomen Kristillisdemokraati (Christian Democratic Party), however, increased.

According to the survey findings, the popularity of the ruling Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue declined by 0.8 per cent to 19.5%, the popularity of the main opposition Perussuomalaiset declined by 0.1 per cent to 18.7 per cent, opposition Kokoomus declined by 0.3 per cent to 18 per cent, the ruling Keskusta declined by 0.1 per cent to 12.8 per cent and the ruling Vihreä Liitto declined by 0.4 per cent to 11 per cent.

The popularity of the other components of the ruling coalition – the Vasemmistoliitto (Left Alliance), increased by 1.9 per cent to 9.1 per cent, while the Suomenruotsalainenkansanpuolue (Swedish People’s Party of Finland-RKP) declined by 0.4 per cent to 4.3 per cent.

The opposition Suomen Kristillisdemokraati (Christian Democratic Party) secured 3.7 per cent support, which was 0.7 per cent increase from that in the previous month.

The survey interviewed 2,958 people on 3 February to 2 March and the margin of error was +/- 2.0 percentage points, reported the Yle.