Finnish parliamentary election, 2003

Finnish parliamentary election, 2003
All 200 seats to the Parliament ; 101 seats were needed for a majority
Turnout	66.7%
Prime Minister before election; Paavo Lipponen ; Social Democratic	Prime Minister ; Anneli Jäätteenmäki ; Centre

Last updated April 01, 2019

Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 16 March 2003.^[1] 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 amount of total popular votes only by few thousand.

Finland, officially the Republic of Finland is a country in Northern Europe bordering the Baltic Sea, Gulf of Bothnia, and Gulf of Finland, between Norway to the north, Sweden to the northwest, and Russia to the east. Finland is a Nordic country and is situated in the geographical region of Fennoscandia. The capital and largest city is Helsinki. Other major cities are Espoo, Vantaa, Tampere, Oulu and Turku.

Centre Party (Finland) registered political party in Finland

The Centre Party of Finland is a centrist, liberal, agrarian political party in Finland.

Anneli Tuulikki Jäätteenmäki is a Finnish politician and Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Finland. She was the first female Prime Minister of Finland from 17 April 2003 to 24 June 2003.

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.

The Green League, shortened to the Greens, is a green political party in Finland. The Green League is among the largest political parties in Finland. The Greens hold fifteen seats in the Finnish Parliament and one in the European Parliament. The party is a member of the Global Greens and the European Green Party, while its MEP, Heidi Hautala, sits with The Greens–European Free Alliance in the European Parliament. Originally split on whether Finland should join the European Union, the Green League is pro-European and was the first Finnish party in favor of the federalisation of the European Union.

The Swedish People's Party of Finland is a liberal-centrist political party in Finland aiming to represent the interests of the minority Swedish-speaking population of Finland. An ethnic catch-all party, the party's main election issue has been since its inception the Swedish-speaking Finns' right to their own language and to maintain the Swedish language's position in Finland. The party was in governmental position 1979–2015 with one or two seats in the government and collaborated with the centre-right as well as the centre-left in the Parliament of Finland. After the 2015 election SFP was left out of the government formed by the three largest parties.

The Christian Democrats are a Christian-democratic political party in Finland. The Christian Democrats have five seats in the Finnish Parliament. The party was represented in the Finnish government by Minister of Interior Päivi Räsänen from 22 June 2011 until 29 May 2015.

Electoral system

The election was held under the d'Hondt method of party-list proportional representation, where the electoral district voted directly for the individual candidate, but each vote also benefitted the candidate's party.

The D'Hondt method or the Jefferson method is a highest averages method for allocating seats, and is thus a type of party-list proportional representation. The method described is named in the United States after Thomas Jefferson, who introduced the method for proportional allocation of seats in the United States House of Representatives in 1791, and in Europe after Belgian mathematician Victor D'Hondt, who described it in 1878 for proportional allocation of parliamentary seats to the parties. There are two forms: closed list and an open list.

Party-list proportional representation family of voting systems

Party-list proportional representation systems are a family of voting systems emphasizing proportional representation (PR) in elections in which multiple candidates are elected through allocations to an electoral list. They can also be used as part of mixed additional member systems.

An electoral district, (election) precinct, election district, or legislative district, called a voting district by the US Census is a territorial subdivision for electing members to a legislative body. Generally, only voters (constituents) who reside within the district are permitted to vote in an election held there. From a single district, a single member or multiple members might be chosen. Members might be chosen by a first-past-the-post system or a proportional representative system, or another voting method entirely. Members might be chosen through a direct election under universal suffrage, an indirect election, or another form of suffrage.

The country was divided into fifteen electoral districts, with the boundaries corresponding to those of administrative regions (in some cases several regions have been grouped into a single constituency), with the exception that the city of Helsinki serves as its own constituency, instead of being part of the Uusimaa region in this case. Each constituency elected a number of representatives to the Eduskunta based on its population. The autonomous region of Åland had a special status with one representative even if its population was not large enough.

Finland comprises 19 regions, called maakunta in Finnish and landskap in Swedish. The regions are governed by regional councils, which serve as forums of cooperation for the municipalities of a region. The main tasks of the regions are regional planning and development of enterprise and education. In addition, the public health services are usually organized on the basis of regions. Currently, the only region where a popular election is held for the council is Kainuu. Other regional councils are elected by municipal councils, each municipality sending representatives in proportion to its population.

Helsinki is the capital and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of 650,058. The city's urban area has a population of 1,268,296, making it by far the most populous urban area in Finland as well as the country's most important center for politics, education, finance, culture, and research. Helsinki is located 80 kilometres (50 mi) north of Tallinn, Estonia, 400 km (250 mi) east of Stockholm, Sweden, and 390 km (240 mi) west of Saint Petersburg, Russia. It has close historical ties with these three cities.

Candidates for the parliamentary election were allowed to be set by political parties and electoral associations. Any Finnish citizen over the age of 18 was eligible for candidacy, apart from incapacitated persons and professional soldiers. Each party or electoral union was allowed to set a maximum of 14 candidates per electoral district, or, in the case the district elected more than 14 members of parliament, an amount equal to that of the representatives elected.

A political party is an organized group of people, often with common views, who come together to contest elections and hold power in the government. The party agrees on some proposed policies and programmes, with a view to promoting the collective good or furthering their supporters' interests.

Capacity (law) the quality of natural and juridical persons necessary for their actions to have legal effect

The capacity of natural and juridical persons in general, determines whether they may make binding amendments to their rights, duties and obligations, such as getting married or merging, entering into contracts, making gifts, or writing a valid will. Capacity is an aspect of status and both are defined by a person's personal law:

A soldier is one who fights as part of an army. A soldier can be a conscripted or volunteer enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, or an officer.

Each Finnish citizen aged 18 or over on the election day had the right to vote in the election, no matter where they lived. The electorate consisted of a total of 4,220,951 people, 4,015,552 of whom were resident in Finland and 205,399 abroad.

Results

Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/–
	Centre Party	689,391	24.7	55	+7
	Social Democratic Party	683,223	24.5	53	+2
	National Coalition Party	517,904	18.6	40	–6
	Left Alliance	277,152	9.9	19	–1
	Green League	223,564	8.0	14	+3
	Christian Democrats	148,987	5.3	7	–3
	Swedish People's Party	128,824	4.6	8	–3
	Finns Party	43,816	1.6	3	+2
	Communist Party of Finland	21,079	0.8	0	0
	Forces for Change in Finland	11,485	0.4	0	New
	Liberals	8,776	0.3	0	0
	Kirjava ”Puolue” – Elonkehän Puolesta	6,659	0.2	0	0
	Pensioners for People	5,346	0.2	0	0
	Finnish People's Blue-Whites	4,579	0.2	0	New
	Åland Coalition	4,306	0.2	1	0
	Communist Workers' Party – For Peace and Socialism	2,908	0.1	0	0
	Finland Rises – People Unites	2,640	0.1	0	New
	For the Poor	1,448	0.1	0	New
	Joint Responsibility Party	404	0.0	0	New
	Others	9,266	0.3	0	–
Invalid/blank votes		23,943	–	–	–
Total		2,815,700	100	200	0
Registered voters/turnout		4,220,951	66.7	–	–
Source: Tilastokeskus^[2]

Popular vote

KESK			24.69%
SDP			24.47%
KOK			18.55%
VAS			9.93%
VIHR			8.01%
SKL			5.34%
RKP			4.61%
PS			1.57%
Others			2.83%

Parliament seats

KESK			27.50%
SDP			26.50%
KOK			20.00%
VAS			9.50%
VIHR			7.00%
RKP			4.00%
SKL			3.50%
PS			1.50%
Others			0.50%

By province

Province	Centre Party	Social Democratic Party	National Coalition Party	Left Alliance	Green League	Christian League	Swedish People's Party	True Finns	Communist	Electorate	Votes	Valid votes	Invalid votes
Southern Savonia	34,205	27,030	11,283	2,282	3,410	4,810	0	472	417	130,103	85,077	84,520	780
Northern Savonia	49,301	26,906	15,425	15,429	7,399	12,093	0	851	1,106	197,514	129,585	129,081	906
North Karelia	33,026	30,639	8,498	4,326	5,767	3,798	0	635	837	132,484	88,225	87,824	666
Kainuu	22,756	5,217	3,201	10,142	1,063	1,731	41	222	291	68,445	45,093	44,958	313
Uusimaa	81,039	181,363	176,712	61,089	103,523	25,944	54,262	22,277	4,021	1,005,079	725,654	725,657	6,514
Eastern Uusimaa	6,037	12,459	6,041	2,802	3,285	1,198	14,977	328	159	68,350	48,491	48,304	455
Southwest Finland	43,552	61,367	64,823	26,515	21,250	9,597	13,081	845	1,615	351,346	248,253	248,369	1,995
Tavastia Proper	17,295	30,035	18,466	7,716	5,165	7,429	0	313	796	129,357	89,575	88,830	986
Päijänne Tavastia	17,464	30,254	22,671	9,044	6,251	10,996	0	605	749	154,705	100,639	100,024	1,022
Kymenlaakso	22,245	33,398	20,862	9,788	4,907	4,888	0	320	650	147,186	98,669	97,982	1,061
South Karelia	21,882	26,169	14,050	2,166	2,860	4,550	0	393	485	108,192	73,807	73,351	720
Central Finland	48,532	35,480	19,730	13,199	9,027	10,278	0	510	1,678	206,066	139,519	139,024	1,158
Southern Ostrobothnia	56,649	14,857	17,614	3,383	2,551	5,848	204	7,890	164	150,030	110,304	110,189	581
Ostrobothnia	9,348	17,670	8,987	5,597	2,574	8,542	42,889	1,491	275	132,208	97,508	97,794	734
Satakunta	36,238	38,369	21,662	19,330	4,492	5,908	0	1,926	280	186,492	129,822	129,087	1,166
Pirkanmaa	40,957	63,382	56,443	30,979	24,050	14,991	0	1,220	5,430	355,780	248,165	247,229	1,968
Central Ostrobothnia	17,589	6,512	1,882	1,836	824	4,941	2,837	1,858	216	53,322	38,683	38,656	306
Northern Ostrobothnia	85,580	27,384	19,148	25,462	13,014	10,601	312	1,496	1,571	274,057	187,443	187,297	1,377
Lapland	45,696	14,732	10,406	26,067	2,152	844	221	164	339	145,397	101,369	101,930	936
Åland Islands	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	19,439	11,715	11,651	299
Source: European Election Database

Aftermath

The Council of State, or the Finnish cabinet, was formed after the parliamentary election by the Centre Party, with its leader Anneli Jäätteenmäki as Prime Minister. A coalition government was formed, composing of the two largest parties of the Eduskunta, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Centre Party, and a minor coalition partner, the Swedish People's Party, who has a history of being a partner in government since 1976. The new cabinet had eight ministers from both the SDP and the Centre Party, and two ministers from the Swedish People's Party.

A Cabinet is a body of high-ranking state officials, typically consisting of the top leaders of the executive branch. Members of a cabinet are usually called Cabinet ministers or secretaries. The function of a Cabinet varies: in some countries it is a collegiate decision-making body with collective responsibility, while in others it may function either as a purely advisory body or an assisting institution to a decision making head of state or head of government. Cabinets are typically the body responsible for the day-to-day management of the government and response to sudden events, whereas the legislative and judicial branches work in a measured pace, in sessions according to lengthy procedures.

The Prime Minister of Finland is the head of the Finnish Government. The prime minister is Finland's head of government and is formally appointed by the President. Finland's first prime minister was Pehr Evind Svinhufvud, who was appointed to the post on 27 November 1917.

A coalition government is a cabinet of a parliamentary government in which multiple political parties cooperate, reducing the dominance of any one party within that "coalition". The usual reason for this arrangement is that no party on its own can achieve a majority in the parliament. A coalition government might also be created in a time of national difficulty or crisis to give a government the high degree of perceived political legitimacy or collective identity it desires while also playing a role in diminishing internal political strife. In such times, parties have formed all-party coalitions. If a coalition collapses, a confidence vote is held or a motion of no confidence is taken.

However, this proved to be one of the shortest-lived cabinets in Finnish history, lasting only 69 days, after the Iraq leak scandal led to the government falling on 24 June 2003. A new cabinet was formed by the Centre Party's Matti Vanhanen, with largely the same composition as the previous cabinet.

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Matti Taneli Vanhanen is a Finnish politician who was Prime Minister of Finland from 2003 to 2010. He was also Chairman of the Centre Party, and in the second half of 2006 he was President of the European Council. In his earlier career he was a journalist. Vanhanen is the son of professor Tatu Vanhanen and Anni Tiihonen.

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References

↑ Nohlen, D & Stöver, P (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p606 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
↑ Eduskuntavaalit 1927–2003 Tilastokeskus 2004

External links

Parliamentary Elections at the Finnish Ministry of Justice's website. (Web Archive)

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[DN-1] Nohlen, D & Stöver, P (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p606 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7

[2] Eduskuntavaalit 1927–2003 Tilastokeskus 2004

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