2003 Finnish parliamentary election

Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 16 March 2003. The Centre Party led by Anneli Jäätteenmäki overtook the Social Democratic Party (SDP) to become the largest party in the Eduskunta. This was credited mainly to Jäätteenmäki's powerful leadership and modernization of the party still often viewed as agrarian and conservative by many. However, the SDP actually won some seats and increased its share of the vote, losing in the number of total popular votes only by a few thousand.

2003 Finnish parliamentary election
16 March 2003
All 200 seats in Parliament
101 seats needed for a majority
Turnout66.7%
  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader Anneli Jäätteenmäki Paavo Lipponen Ville Itälä
Party Centre SDP National Coalition
Last election 48 seats, 22.4% 51 seats, 22.9% 46 seats, 21.0%
Seats won 55 53 40
Seat change 7 2 6
Popular vote 689,391 683,223 517,904
Percentage 24.7% 24.5% 18.6%
Swing 2.3pp 1.6pp 2.4pp
  Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party
 
Leader Suvi-Anne Siimes Osmo Soininvaara Bjarne Kallis
Party Left Alliance Green KD
Last election 20 seats, 10.9% 11 seats, 7.3% 10 seats, 5.34%
Seats won 19 14 7
Seat change 1 3 3
Popular vote 277,152 223,564 148,987
Percentage 9.9% 8.0% 5.3%
Swing 1.0pp 0.7pp 1.1pp
  Seventh party Eighth party
 
Leader Jan-Erik Enestam Timo Soini
Party RKP Finns
Last election 11 seats, 5.1% 1 seat, 1.0%
Seats won 8 3
Seat change 3 2
Popular vote 128,824 43,816
Percentage 4.6% 1.6%
Swing 0.5pp 0.6pp
Prime Minister before election

Paavo Lipponen
SDP

 Prime Minister after election

Anneli Jäätteenmäki
Centre

Politics of Finland
State
Executive
Legislative
Judiciary
Recent elections
Political parties
Administrative divisions
  • Regions
    (Maakunnat, Landskap)
  • Sub-regions
    (Seutukunnat, Ekonomiska regioner)
  • Municipalities
    (Kunnat, Kommuner)
  • Wellbeing services counties
    (Hyvinvointialueet, Välfärdsområde)
Foreign relations
  • Diplomatic missions of / in Finland
  • Ambassadors
  • Politics of the European Union
  • Other countries

The Green League achieved its best results ever, but the Swedish People's Party suffered losses. The Christian Democrats gained votes but lost seats. This was partly because in 1999 and before Christian Democrats had been in an election coalition with Centre Party and benefited from this, while the Centre Party had lost seats due to the arrangement, and thus discontinued it starting from 2003. The Left Alliance continued its slow decline, while the small populist Finns Party did not do as well as some had expected.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.