Minister of Finance Annika Saarikko (Centre) gave a speech as the ruling party kicked off its election campaign in Helsinki on 27 January 2023. The Centre was the choice of 10.1 per cent of people responding to the latest opinion poll commissioned by YLE. (Seppo Samuli – Lehtikuva)
THE RACE BETWEEN the National Coalition, Social Democrats and Finns Party for the right to take the first stab at forming a ruling coalition is heating up with two months left until the parliamentary elections.
YLE on Thursday reported that its latest poll reveals that the three parties are separated only by 3.2 percentage points, with the two opposition parties losing and the ruling party gaining support.
Support for the National Coalition and Finns Party has fallen by 1.4 points and 0.9 points since the previous poll to 21.6 and 18.4 per cent, respectively. With the Social Democrats seeing its popularity creep up by 0.3 points to 19.1 per cent, the order of the three most popular parties has returned to what it was for most of last year.