25 October 2004
Inquiries: Mr Risto Lättilä +358 9 1734
3252, vaalit.tilastokeskus@stat.fi
Director in charge: Ms Riitta Harala
Proportion of women grew both among candidates and elected councillors
A total of 39,906 candidates were nominated in the Municipal elections. Of the candidates, 39.9 per cent were women. The number of women rose by 1.7 percentage points from the 2000 Municipal elections. Among the elected councillors, 36.3 per cent were women, which is 1.9 percentage points more than in the previous municipal elections. The proportion of women among elected councillors has been growing continuously ever since the 1950s.
Women made up the majority of the municipal councillors elected in the 2004 Municipal elections in 23 municipalities. In the 2000 Municipal elections women held the majority of council seats in 13 municipalities. In the 2004 Municipal elections the highest number of women councillors in relative terms was elected in Lieto, where 21 out of 35 councillors were women. The number of female councillors elected was lowest in Utsjoki, where of 15 councillors only one was a woman.
Women and men as a proportion of elected councillors in Municipal elections in 1953-2004, %
In these Municipal elections the number of candidates aged under 30 was 4,501, of whom 705 were elected. It is 23 more than in the previous Municipal elections. In these Municipal elections 15.7 per cent of the candidates aged under 30 and 31.8 per cent of those aged at least 30 were elected.
Among the candidates, 243 were foreign citizens and 630 were of foreign origin. In all, 12 foreign citizens and 82 foreign-born candidates got elected to municipal councils.
Voting turnout rose from the previous municipal elections
In the Municipal elections, voting turnout was 58.6 per cent, which is 2.7 percentage points higher than in the 2000 Municipal elections. The highest voting turnout of the country, 89.5 per cent, was attained in Iniö and the lowest in Vantaa, 50.8 per cent.
In the Municipal elections the biggest party was the Social Democratic Party of Finland, which received 24.1 per cent of the votes cast. That was 1.1 per cent higher than in the previous Municipal elections. Compared with the 2000 Municipal elections, the number of votes cast for Social Democrats rose particularly in the constituency of Helsinki, by 3.1 per cent.
Statistics and tables on the Municipal elections are available at: http://tilastokeskus.fi/tk/he/vaalit/vaalit2004kun/index_en.html and the StatFin service.
Source: Statistics Finland's election result service