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Published: 8 June 2009

True Finns and Greens successful in the European Parliament elections 2009

The True Finns won one seat in the European Parliament and the party’s leader Timo Soini was the biggest winner with over 130,000 votes. Support for the True Finns rose to 9.8 per cent, which is 9.3 percentage points higher than in the previous European Parliament elections. Because of the electoral alliance of the two parties, the success of the True Finns yielded a seat in the European Parliament also for the Christian Democrats, even though their share of votes cast remained at 4.2 per cent. The Greens were the other winner of these elections, alongside the True Finns. Support for the Greens rose by 2.0 per cent when compared with the 2004 European Parliament elections and the party earned another seat in the European Parliament.

The three major parties each lost one seat in the European Parliament. The National Coalition Party and the Centre Party both secured three seats. The Social Democrats were left with two seats. The National Coalition Party had the largest share of all votes cast, namely 23.2 per cent. Its share of votes cast fell by 0.5 percentage points from the previous European Parliament elections. The Centre Party got 19.0 per cent and the Social Democrats 17.5 per cent of all votes cast. Compared to the previous European Parliament elections, the Centre Party’s share of all votes cast fell by 4.3 percentage points and that of the Social Democrats by 3.6 percentage points. Support for the Left Alliance fell by 3.2 percentage points and the party lost its only seat in the European Parliament. The Swedish People’s Party got a 6.1 per cent share of all the votes cast and managed to keep its one seat.

The voting turnout in these European Parliament elections was 40.3 per cent, which is 0.8 percentage points down from the 2004 European Parliament elections. Voting was liveliest in the Helsinki electoral district, where voting turnout rose to 50.9 per cent. Voting was least active in the North Karelia electoral district (33.7 per cent). Of individual municipalities, the country's highest voting turnout was in Kauniainen (68.4 per cent) and the lowest in Hyrynsalmi (25.5 per cent).

This time Finland elected 13 representatives to the European Parliament instead of the earlier 14. Six of the elected representatives have no prior experience of the European Parliament.

Share of votes cast for the major parties in elections for the European Parliament in 2009, 2004, 1999 and 1996

Party	European Parliament elec. 2009	European Parliament elec. 2004	European Parliament elec. 1999	European Parliament elec. 1996
National Coalition Pty	23.2	23.7	25.3	20.2
Centre Pty of Finland	19.0	23.4	21.3	24.4
Social Democr. Pty	17.5	21.2	17.9	21.5
GREENS	12.4	10.4	13.4	7.6
True Finns	9.8	0.5	0.8	0.7
Swedish People's Pty	6.1	5.7	6.8	5.8
LEFT	5.9	9.1	9.1	10.5
Christian Democrats	4.2	4.3	2.4	2.8

Source: European Parliament Elections 2009, Statistics Finland

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• 001. Party with most votes in European Parliament elections 2009 (pdf) (8.6.2009)
• 002. Voting turnout by municipality in European Parliament elections 2009 (pdf) (8.6.2009)
• 003. Change in voting turnout by municipality in European Parliament elections 2004-2009 (pdf) (8.6.2009)

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• European Parliament elections, quality description (8.6.2009)

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Updated 8.6.2009