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2. Women and men in Municipal elections 2012

Corrected on 19 March 2014.  The corrected numbers are indicated in red. Several complaints on Municipal elections 2012 have been filed to administrative courts and the results of the elections have been changed by the decisions of administrative courts (errors in source data have also been corrected).

Next we will examine the voting turnout of women and men and their success in the elections by party and area. Differing from the previous section, included are all votes cast and/or persons entitled to vote.

2.1. Voting turnout fell regardless of sex

In the Municipal elections 2012, the proportion of voters of persons entitled to vote remained at 58.3 per cent in the whole country, while in the previous Municipal elections 2008 it was 61.2 per cent. Voting turnout fell for both men and women. The voting turnout of women was 59.8  per cent and that of men 56.7  per cent in the Municipal elections 2012. The last time the voting percentage was under 60 per cent was in the 2000 Municipal elections. Before that, the percentage was under 60 per cent in the Municipal elections 1950. (Table 5.)

Men voted clearly more actively than women until the 1970s, when the difference between the genders in voting turnout narrowed down to one-tenths of a percentage point. Women's voting turnout was for the first time higher than that of men in the Municipal elections 1984. After that, women have been for nearly three decades more active voters in Municipal elections than men.

After 1984, the gender difference in voting turnout grew in favour of women until the Municipal elections 2004. Then women's voting turnout was 4.3 percentage points higher than that of men. In the Municipal elections 2012, the difference in men's and women's voting turnout narrowed to 3.1  percentage points from 3.7 percentage points in 2008.

Table 5. Women's and men’s voting turnout in Municipal elections 1950–2012, %

Year	Women	Men	difference	Total
1950	58.9	67.6	-8.7	63.0
1953	68.0	75.3	-7.3	71.3
1956	62.9	70.0	-7.1	66.2
1960	72.7	77.4	-4.7	74.8
1964	77.9	80.9	-3.0	79.3
1968	75.3	78.4	-3.1	76.7
1972	75.4	75.8	-0.4	75.6
1976	78.5	78.6	-0.1	78.5
1980	78.0	78.2	-0.2	78.1
1984	74.3	73.7	0.6	74.0
1988	71.9	69.0	2.9	70.5
1992	72.1	69.6	2.5	70.9
1996	62.8	59.8	3.0	61.3
2000	57.7	53.9	3.8	55.9
2004	60.7	56.4	4.3	58.6
2008	63.0	59.3	3.7	61.2
2012	59.8	56.7	3.1	58.3

Since the 1976 Municipal elections, women in the constituencies of Vaasa, Satakunta (until 1996, Turku South) and Lapland have been more active at voting than in the rest of the country. This was the case in the 2012 elections as well. Women voted the most actively in the constituency of Vaasa (64.5%), the second most actively in the constituency of Satakunta (62.3%) and the third most in Lapland (62.1%). (Table 6.) In these constituencies, men were also slightly more active at voting that in the other constituencies. Women and men were in turn the least active voters in the constituencies of North Karelia and North Savo.

The voting turnout of women and men fell in all constituencies from the previous elections. For women, it fell least from the previous elections in the constituencies of Helsinki, Uusimaa and North Karelia : in Helsinki by 1.3 percentage points and in Uusimaa and North Karelia by 2.4  percentage points. Men's voting turnout went down least in North Karelia (by 1.0 percentage points). However, men's voting percentage in Uusimaa went down by 2.4  percentage points and remained clearly lower than men's voting percentage in the whole country. Women's voting percentage went down most in the constituencies of North Savo, Kymi and Vaasa and men's in the constituencies of North Savo, Vaasa and Central Finland.

In the Municipal elections, voting has repeatedly been more active in rural municipalities than in urban municipalities. Women's voting turnout was 65.8 per cent in rural municipalities, 61.9 per cent in semi-urban municipalities and 58.0  per cent in urban municipalities. Men's voting turnout similarly correlates with the degree of urbanisation of the municipality. Of the ten largest towns, women's voting turnout was highest in Espoo (61.4%) and Helsinki (59.3%). It was lowest in Lahti (54.0%) and Kuopio (54.3%). Men's voting turnout varied between large towns even more than that. Men voted most in Espoo, where men's voting percentage was 57.0 per cent, and least in Vantaa, where only 49.3  per cent of men entitled to vote used their right to vote.

Table 6. Women's and men’s voting turnout by constituency in Municipal elections 1976–2012, %

Constituency	1976	1980	1984	1988	1992	1996	2000	2004	2008	2012
MAINLAND FINLAND	78.5	78.0	74.3	71.9	72.1	62.8	57.7	60.7	63.0	59.8
Helsinki	75.0	72.8	67.1	64.9	68.0	59.8	53.3	59.5	60.6	59.3
Uusimaa	77.6	76.7	72.0	69.3	71.2	61.4	55.3	59.8	61.3	58.9
Varsinais- Suomi	78.8	79.1	75.3	75.1	74.6	64.4	58.1	61.5	64.1	60.1
Satakunta	81.0	81.2	78.1	76.0	76.2	65.1	61.2	63.1	66.1	62.3
Häme	78.8	79.3	75.3	73.2	72.2	62.3	57.2	59.5	61.7	58.7
Pirkanmaa	80.2	79.4	75.7	72.0	73.8	63.0	59.1	60.9	64.3	60.5
Kymi	77.7	76.9	73.6	71.2	71.2	61.6	56.9	59.8	63.1	58.6
South Savo	77.1	76.5	73.0	71.2	70.1	61.2	58.2	60.2	64.7	61.3
North Savo	76.9	75.7	73.6	68.7	68.8	59.7	55.8	58.3	61.8	57.1
North Karelia	75.2	74.2	71.4	68.8	69.8	59.3	55.1	57.5	59.2	56.8
Vaasa	80.9	80.5	79.8	78.0	76.6	70.2	66.0	67.3	68.9	64.5
Central Finland	80.5	80.1	76.5	75.0	71.8	62.6	58.2	59.8	64.2	59.9
Oulu	80.0	80.4	76.2	72.4	71.3	61.7	57.1	58.8	60.8	57.9
Lapland	83.1	83.5	80.1	77.0	75.4	66.8	61.8	63.2	64.8	62.1

2.2. Share of female candidates varied greatly by municipality and party

The share of women among candidates has grown in every Municipal election until 2008. While in 1953 only every tenth candidate was a woman, in the 2008 elections women's share of candidates rose to 40.4 per cent. However, the long growth in the share of female candidates halted at the 2012 elections, when only 38.8 per cent of the candidates were women. (Table 7.) The total number of candidates was 37,124, of whom 14,422 were women.

Women were nominated as candidates slightly more often in urban municipalities than in rural or semi-urban municipalities. In towns women's share of candidates was 39.8 per cent, in rural municipalities 38.3 per cent and in semi-urban municipalities 37.7 per cent

The biggest cities in the Greater Helsinki region, Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa, showed the direction already in the 1980s, when the candidate share of women was over 40 per cent in these cities. Rural and small municipalities have caught up with them after this. In the Municipal elections 2012, the number of women candidates was equal to or more than that of men in seven municipalities: Enontekiö (women's share 56.3%), Tyrnävä (55.3%), Korsnäs (54.5%), Virolahti (54.3%), Humppila (53.4%), Hyrynsalmi (52.6%) and Hämeenkoski (50.0%). As in the 2008 Municipal elections, the shares of female candidates were highest in Vantaa, Helsinki and Espoo when comparing the ten largest towns. In the previous elections, in 2008, the female candidate shares varied in the Greater Helsinki region from 45.0 per cent in Helsinki and 45.2 per cent in Espoo to 46.7 per cent in Vantaa. In the 2012 elections, however, the share of female candidates remained slightly lower than in the 2008 elections: in Vantaa at 44.6 per cent, in Helsinki at 44.0 per cent and in Espoo at 41.2 per cent. (Table 9.)

In the 2012 Municipal elections, women's candidate shares fell from the previous elections in all constituencies apart from Lapland, where the share of female candidates among all candidates was 0.7 percentage points higher than in 2008. The share of female candidates fell most in the constituencies of Pirkanmaa and Central Finland. In Pirkanmaa, the share went down by 3.6 percentage points and in Central Finland by 3.4 percentage points from the previous elections. The share of female candidates has usually been higher in southern constituencies. This was also true in the Municipal elections 2012, where the share of female candidates was over 40 per cent only in the constituencies of Helsinki, Uusimaa and Varsinais-Suomi. Their share was in turn lowest in the constituencies of North Karelia (36.5%) and Vaasa (37.0%). (Table 8.)

Of the eight biggest parties (KOK, SDP, KESK, PS, LEFT, GREENS, RKP, KD), only the Left Alliance and the Swedish People's Party were able to raise their share of female candidates slightly from the previous elections. The Green League was the only party that nominated more female candidates than male ones. The Greens now had for the sixth time the biggest female candidate share, 56.8 per cent. The share was of that size in the 2008 Municipal elections as well. The Christian Democrats had the next biggest share of female candidates (45.3%), followed by the Swedish People's Party (43.5%) and the Social Democrats (40.4%). In the Centre Party (39.8%), the Coalition Party (39.1%) and the Left Alliance (37.9%) fewer than 40 per cent of the candidates were women. The Coalition Party, the SDP and the Centre Party nominated slightly fewer female candidates than in the previous elections in relation to all candidates. In True Finns, 23.3 per cent of the candidates were women, and thus considerably fewer than in all other major parties. The share of female candidates in True Finns has also gone down most from the party's female candidate share (25.7%) in the previous elections. (Figure 3.)

Figure 3. Women's shares of candidates in major parties in Municipal elections 2012 and 2008, %

The remaining eight parties taking part in the elections were smaller parties. They nominated altogether fewer candidates than any of the parliamentary parties. The shares of female candidates in small parties varied greatly. The biggest of the small parties, the Communist Party of Finland, nominated 304 candidates, 32.2 per cent of whom were women. Of the 797 candidates nominated by constituency associations, 37.2 per cent were women.

All in all, female candidates were younger than male candidates were. The average age of male candidates was 49.8 years and that of female candidates 47.0 years. The share of male candidates was largest in the 60 to 64 age group and among those aged 65 or over. The share of female candidates was in turn highest in the 30 to 39 age group. Of all female candidates, 30.8 per cent were aged under 40, while this was so for 25.3 per cent of male candidates. Of female candidates, 32.0 per cent were aged 55 or over, as against 42.0  per cent of male candidates. Examined by party, the share of female candidates aged under 40 varied somewhat between the eight biggest parties and even less than this if the small parties are included in the comparison. The share of women aged under 40 was largest in the Green League, 43.1 per cent of female candidates, and the Swedish People's Party had the second largest share, 34.6 per cent. The share of female candidates aged under 40 was smallest for the Christian Democrats, where under 40 age groups formed nearly one-quarter (24.4%) of the party's female candidates. The Social Democrats had the second lowest share of female candidates aged under 40, i.e. 25.5 per cent.

In the Municipal elections 2012, 17.4 per cent of female candidates and 21.1 per cent of male candidates were currently municipal councillors. The share of current municipal councillors among candidates was smaller than in the Municipal elections 2004 and 2008. In 2008, 18.0 per cent of female candidates were currently councillors and 23.8 per cent of male candidates. The nomination of Members of Parliament as candidates was in turn considerably more common than in the previous elections. In all, four out of five MPs (81%) were nominated as candidates in the Municipal elections 2012. Of male MPs, 83.5 per cent were candidates, while the corresponding share for female MPs was 77.7 per cent. The figure of MPs as candidates grew for both male and female MPs. In the 2008 Municipal elections, 77.5 per cent of MPs were nominated as candidates and in the 2004 elections only 71.5 per cent of MPs.

2.3. Women gained more votes than men only in four municipalities

In addition to the number of female candidates, the share of votes cast for female candidates grew over several decades, from 1968 until the Municipal elections 2008. The growth was at its largest in the 1972 elections, when the share of votes cast for women went up by 5.4 percentage points from the previous Municipal elections. In the 1976 and 1980 elections, women's share of votes cast grew by over four percentage points. After this, the growth has slowed down. In the 2012 elections, besides the fall in the share of female candidates, the share of votes cast for women also dropped to a lower level than in the previous elections. In the Municipal elections 2012, the share stood at 40.7 per cent. This represented a drop of 1.3 percentage points from the previous elections, when women gained 42 per cent of votes cast. Women got in all 1,015,696  votes, which is 54,067  votes fewer than in the Municipal elections 2008. However, the share of votes cast for women (40.7%) was higher than the female share of candidates. This has been the case in all Municipal elections since 1953. (Table 7.)

Among the established parties, the female candidates of the Greens were most successful by collecting 62.7 per cent of the votes cast for the party. In the Green League, the nomination of women and their success in elections has conventionally been more general than average. Green female candidates gained a similar share of votes cast in 2008 as well. The share grew by 3.6 percentage points from the 2004 elections, when the share of votes cast for women was 59.1 per cent. Women gained less than one-half of all votes cast in all other major parties. Women received larger shares of votes cast than in the previous elections in the Coalition Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Left Alliance. The second biggest share of votes cast was gained by the female candidates of the Christian Democrats, 46.2 per cent of the votes cast for the party. The third biggest share, 45.3 per cent, was gained by female SDP candidates. True Finn voters gave their vote to women clearly the least often. The party's share of votes cast for women was 22.9 per cent and thus 0.4 percentage points lower than the party's female candidate share. Votes were cast for women more than in the previous elections in the Coalition Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Left Alliance. (Figure 4.)

Figure 4. Women's shares of votes cast in major parties in Municipal elections 2012 and 2008, %

Examined by constituency, women were most successful in the constituencies of Helsinki and Uusimaa, where female candidates gained 48.1 and 45.3 per cent of all votes cast. In both constituencies, the share of votes cast for women was 1.1-fold relative to the share of female candidates. Women were least successful in the constituencies of Kymi (34.9%), Vaasa (35.1%) and North Karelia (36.3%). In the last two mentioned constituencies, the shares of female candidates were also the lowest of all. In the constituency of Kymi, women were given the least votes in relation to the share of female candidates, 0.9-fold: 38.6 per cent of candidates were women, while women gained 34.9 per cent of all votes.

In the Municipal elections, women had clearly more success in urban municipalities than in semi-urban or rural municipalities. In urban municipalities, women got 43.1 per cent of the votes cast and in semi-urban municipalities 36.8 per cent. In rural municipalities, the share of votes cast for female candidates stood at 35.2 per cent. In urban municipalities, the share of votes cast for female candidates was higher than their share of candidates (39.8%). In rural municipalities the situation was the opposite. In these municipalities the share of votes cast for women, 35.2 per cent, remained lower than the female candidate share (38.3%) in rural municipalities. Compared with the Municipal elections 2008, the shares of votes cast for women had dropped in urban municipalities by 1.4 percentage points, in semi-urban municipalities by 0.6 percentage points and in rural municipalities by 1.3 percentage points.

Of the ten largest towns, women did best in Espoo, where women gained exactly one-half of all votes cast. The share of votes was 1.2-fold relative to the share of female candidates. In the previous 2008 elections, women candidates in Espoo also reached an equal share of votes. Then, women were most successful of big towns in Helsinki, where women gained 54.2 per cent of all votes cast. In the Municipal elections 2012, votes were cast for women considerably less often in Helsinki, and women got 48.1 per cent of the votes cast. The share of votes cast for women in Helsinki was 6.1 percentage points lower than in the previous elections, although women's share of candidates, 44,0 per cent, went down by just one percentage point from the previous elections. Of the ten largest towns, women were the least successful in Lahti, where their share of votes cast was 34.5 per cent. In Lahti, the share of votes cast for women was 0.9-fold relative to the share of female candidates among all candidates. In contrast, women gained votes as much as 1.3-fold (46.9%) relative to the share of female candidates (36.3%) in Tampere. (Table 9.)

Besides Espoo, votes were cast to women more often than men in three municipalities in the whole country. Women's shares of votes cast were the highest in Tyrnävä (55.2%), Enontekiö (54.5%) and Humppila (51.1%). In the 2008 elections, there were seven municipalities where women gained one-half or over one-half of all votes cast. Correspondingly, there were nine municipalities in the previous elections where the share of votes cast for women remained under 30 per cent. In the 2012 elections, the share of votes cast for women was under 30 per cent in as many as 47 municipalities.

Examined by party, Green female candidates were most successful in the ten largest towns and reached the 50 per cent share of votes cast clearly in all big towns (Table 12). Coalition Party women gained the largest share of votes in Espoo, where they received 56.7 per cent of the votes cast for the party. Coalition Party women were least successful in Kouvola, where their share of votes was 33.1 per cent. In Espoo the share of votes cast for the SDP was the most female-dominated: 64.6 per cent of those voting for the party voted for a female candidate. (Table 10.) As in the previous elections, Centre Party women did best of all big towns in Helsinki, where the share of votes cast for women was 55.8 per cent of the votes cast for the party. True Finn women received most votes in Kuopio. However, even there the share of votes cast for women remained at 33.5 per cent of the votes cast for the party. True Finns had the most male-dominated share of votes in Kouvola, where women gained just 7.3 per cent of all votes cast. (Table 11.)

2.4. Women's share of elected councillors remained again smaller than women's share of votes cast

In 2012, the share of women elected to municipal councils fell from the previous elections for the first time since the 1956 elections. Starting from the 1950s, the share of elected women remained around seven to eight per cent, until since the 1968 elections it rose continuously by several percentage points at a time until 2004. In the 1980 elections, the share of women exceeded 20 per cent for the first time and by 1992, the share was already over 30 per cent of council seats. In 2004, the share of the elected women was 36.4 per cent. In the following Municipal elections, 36.7 per cent of the elected councillors were women. In the 2012 elections, the share of women among elected councillors fell to 36.2 per cent after having been rising for decades.

In the whole country, the female share of candidates was 38.8 per cent and 40.7 per cent of all votes cast, but their share of elected councillors was just 36.2 per cent. On the level of the whole country, the share of women elected to municipal councils has conventionally been smaller than the share of votes cast for women in elections. In these elections, the shares of women among elected councillors by constituency were smaller than the shares of votes cast for women, with the exception of the con-stituencies of Helsinki and Kymi. (Table 8.) There has been even more variation than this by municipality and by party. (Tables 10–13.)

The highest numbers of women were elected from the lists of the Centre Party: 1,079 women got elected and women formed 35.1 per cent of those elected from the party. They were followed by elected councillors from the Social Democratic Party (721 women, 41.7%) and the Coalition Party (619 women, 65.7%). In the Green League, where most women were elected in relative terms, 68.1 per cent, 220 women were elected to municipal councils. The Centre Party, which again did best in small municipalities, got candidates into councils with smaller numbers of votes. Although the number of women elected to councils from the Centre Party was highest, women's share of elected councillors (35.1%) remained lower in the Centre Party than in many other parties. (Figure 5.)

The share of elected women was divided in terms of municipalities' degree of urbanisation quite similarly as the share of votes cast for women. In urban municipalities, women were elected relatively more than in semi-urban municipalities and in semi-urban municipalities relatively more than in rural municipalities. In urban municipalities, 40.4 per cent of councillors were women. In semi-urban municipalities, the share of female councillors was 35.2 per cent and in rural municipalities 34.1 per cent. In all eight major parties, the share of women among elected councillors was higher in urban than rural municipalities. The difference between the shares of elected female councillors in urban and rural municipalities was biggest for the Swedish People's Party, the Left Alliance and the Coalition Party. The share of female councillors from the Swedish People's Party was 45.2 per cent in urban municipalities and 35.3 per cent in rural municipalities. The corresponding figures for the Left Alliance were 40.6 per cent and 31.5 per cent and for the Coalition Party 39.5 per cent and 32.4 per cent. The Centre Party and the SDP had the least differences in the shares of female elected councillors in these municipality groups.

Figure 5. Women's shares of elected councillors in major parties in Municipal elections 2012 and 2008, %

Examined by constituency, most women in relative terms were elected in those constituencies where women had the biggest shares of candidates and votes cast. In relative terms, the largest numbers of women were elected from the constituency of Helsinki, where 49.4 per cent of those elected were women, followed by the constituency of Uusimaa, where 42.0 per cent of elected councillors were women. The shares of elected women were weakest in the constituencies of Vaasa (32.1%) and Satakunta (32.2%), where the share of elected female councillors remained under one-third of all elected councillors. (Table 8.)

Women gained a majority in the municipal councils of six municipalities. In the 2008 Municipal elections, there were 13 municipalities where more women than men were elected to the council, and 23 in the earlier 2004 elections. Six female-dominated councils were now elected: in Enontekiö (women 58.8%), Espoo (53.3%), Hailuoto (52.8%), Hämeenlinna (52.2%), Soini (52.4%) and Tyrvänä (51.9%). There were 35 councils where the share of women was under one quarter. In the previous elections, one fewer such council was elected. In the ten largest municipalities, most women got elected in relative terms in Espoo (53.3%) and least in Kouvola, where the share of women was just 33.9 per cent.

Elected women were younger than elected men were. The average age of women was 47.3 years and that of men 51.5 years. The average age of the elected male councillors was 1.7 years higher than that of male candidates and the elected women were 0.3 years older than female candidates were. Of the elected female councillors, 28.7 per cent were aged under 40, which is 2.1 percentage points less than the share of women of this age among candidates. The figure for men aged 40 among elected councillors was 19.3 per cent, while their share among candidates was six percentage points higher. The share of over 55-year-olds (46.3%) among elected male councillors was 4.3  percentage points higher than among male candidates. The share of elected female councillors aged over 55 (30.5%) remained 1.5 percentage points lower than the share of candidates of this age women. The average age of both elected women and men rose compared with the 2008 Municipal elections.

Figure 6. Women's shares in Municipal elections 1953–2012, %

Table 7. Women's shares of candidates, votes cast and elected councillors in Municipal elections 1953–2012, %

Year	Women's share of
	candidates	votes cast	elected councillors
1953	10.0	13.1	7.4
1956	10.8	12.2	7.3
1960	11.1	13.5	7.6
1964	11.9	13.4	7.9
1968	13.6	16.2	10.7
1972	19.5	21.6	14.7
1976	23.9	25.7	18.1
1980	27.2	30.1	22.2
1984	29.2	32.5	25.2
1988	32.4	34.4	27.2
1992	33.5	36.2	30.0
1996	36.3	36.8	31.5
2000	38.2	39.4	34.4
2004	39.9	41.8	36.4
2008	40.4	42.0	36.7
2012	38.8	40.7	36.2

Table 8. Women's share of candidates, votes and elected councillors by constituency in Municipal elections 2012, %

Constituency	Women's share of
	candidates	votes cast	elected councillors
MAINLAND FINLAND	38.8	40.7	36.2
Helsinki	44.0	48.1	49.4
Uusimaa	41.5	45.3	42.0
Varsinais- Suomi	40.5	41.3	37.3
Satakunta	37.8	37.7	32.2
Häme	39.4	39.4	38.5
Pirkanmaa	37.7	40.5	35.1
Kymi	38.6	34.9	36.4
South Savo	38.8	37.9	33.8
North Savo	37.9	38.8	36.4
North Karelia	36.5	36.3	35.8
Vaasa	37.0	35.1	32.1
Central Finland	37.3	39.7	36.3
Oulu	37.6	39.1	35.9
Lapland	39.3	38.3	35.0

Figure 7. Proportion of votes won by women in the major parties in Municipal elections 2012, %

Table 9. Women's shares of candidates, votes cast and elected councillors in the largest towns in Municipal elections 2012, %

Region	Women's share of
	candidates	votes cast	elected councillors
MAINLAND FINLAND	38.8	40.7	36.2
Urban   municipalities   total	39.8	43.1	40.4
Helsinki	44.0	48.1	49.4
Espoo	41.2	50.0	53.3
Tampere	36.3	46.9	46.3
Vantaa	44.6	45.2	47.8
Turku	41.1	45.1	47.8
Oulu	41.0	44.4	44.8
Jyväskylä	40.1	44.5	44.8
Lahti	38.7	34.5	37.3
Kuopio	39.4	42.3	37.3
Kouvola	37.0	31.2	33.9

Table 10. Shares of female candidates in the Coalition Party (KOK) and the Social Democratic Party of Finland (SDP) among candidates, votes cast and elected councillors in the largest towns in Municipal elections 2012, %

Region	National Coalition Party KOK			Finnish Social Democratic Party SDP
	Women's share of candidates	Women's share of votes cast	Women's share of elected councillors	Women's share of candidates	Women's share of votes cast	Women's share of elected councillors
MAINLAND FINLAND	39.1	41.4	35.7	40.4	45.3	41.7
Urban   municipalities   total	40.5	43.1	39.5	40.3	46.6	43.0
Helsinki	52.8	48.6	43.5	47.2	47.0	46.7
Espoo	45.5	56.7	62.1	40.2	64.6	60.0
Tampere	35.4	44.2	35.3	44.0	58.4	56.3
Vantaa	41.0	41.4	38.9	44.0	47.6	61.1
Turku	49.0	40.5	47.4	48.0	43.5	42.9
Oulu	48.0	49.7	53.8	42.0	53.9	55.6
Jyväskylä	46.0	44.6	38.5	43.0	52.7	47.1
Lahti	37.5	35.0	33.3	43.2	31.8	27.8
Kuopio	42.0	42.0	28.6	38.6	50.8	41.7
Kouvola	39.0	33.1	41.7	38.8	38.2	42.9

Table 11. Shares of female candidates in the True Finns (PS) and the Centre Party of Finland (KESK) among candidates, votes cast and elected councillors in the largest towns in Municipal elections 2012, %

Region	True Finns PS			Centre Party of Finland KESK
	Women's share of candidates	Women's share of votes cast	Women's share of elected councillors	Women's share of candidates	Women's share of votes cast	Women's share of elected councillors
MAINLAND FINLAND	23.3	22.9	23.2	39.8	37.3	35.1
Urban   municipalities   total	23.2	24.0	25.5	40.4	39.4	35.6
Helsinki	28.6	23.3	25.0	41.9	55.8	66.7
Espoo	27.2	19.2	20.0	42.9	35.9	–
Tampere	14.0	26.5	22.2	40.3	30.9	33.3
Vantaa	32.0	27.1	18.2	35.6	46.5	66.7
Turku	20.0	19.6	33.3	37.1	45.0	25.0
Oulu	22.4	30.0	50.0	33.0	36.6	31.6
Jyväskylä	23.8	21.3	37.5	40.0	37.1	45.5
Lahti	18.8	13.3	22.2	40.7	55.3	100.0
Kuopio	25.0	33.5	44.4	40.9	38.2	38.5
Kouvola	16.3	7.3	–	33.3	33.3	44.4

Table 12. Table 8. Shares of female candidates in the Green League (GREENS) and the Left Alliance (LEFT) among candidates, votes cast and elected councillors in the largest towns in Municipal elections 2012, %

Region	Green League GREENS			Left-Wing Alliance LEFT
	Women's share of candidates	Women's share of votes cast	Women's share of elected councillors	Women's share of candidates	Women's share of votes cast	Women's share of elected councillors
MAINLAND FINLAND	56.8	62.7	68.1	37.9	40.7	35.8
Urban   municipalities   total	55.8	62.6	68.8	38.9	42.4	40.6
Helsinki	58.3	61.5	63.2	40.2	44.0	55.6
Espoo	48.2	63.8	84.6	39.2	34.2	–
Tampere	47.0	53.6	60.0	45.0	62.0	71.4
Vantaa	58.0	68.5	77.8	44.4	39.2	50.0
Turku	49.0	70.5	80.0	42.0	57.7	44.4
Oulu	60.2	64.0	42.9	39.0	41.2	40.0
Jyväskylä	46.6	55.4	71.4	32.9	44.2	33.3
Lahti	48.4	56.2	66.7	34.2	30.6	40.0
Kuopio	64.9	60.5	60.0	29.6	32.1	25.0
Kouvola	69.6	74.5	100.0	33.3	34.1	50.0

Table 13. Shares of female candidates in the Swedish People's Party in Finland (RKP) and the Christian Democrats (KD) among candidates, votes cast and elected councillors in the largest towns in Municipal elections 2012, %

Region	Swedish People's Party in Finland RKP			Christian Democrats in Finland KD
	Women's share of candidates	Women's share of votes cast	Women's share of elected councillors	Women's share of candidates	Women's share of votes cast	Women's share of elected councillors
MAINLAND FINLAND	43.5	41.7	38.3	45.3	46.2	38.7
Urban   municipalities   total	45.7	45.4	45.2	44.7	47.0	40.2
Helsinki	47.2	50.3	60.0	53.4	50.4	50.0
Espoo	43.8	36.6	28.6	56.0	44.7	50.0
Tampere	–	–	–	48.4	66.8	100.0
Vantaa	58.7	40.0	–	57.9	64.9	50.0
Turku	49.0	37.9	66.7	47.8	34.9	–
Oulu	–	–	–	33.3	61.7	100.0
Jyväskylä	–	–	–	45.7	53.8	25.0
Lahti	–	–	–	43.2	60.0	75.0
Kuopio	–	–	–	50.0	37.2	–
Kouvola	–	–	–	48.6	44.2	25.0

Source: Municipal Elections 2012, Review of advance voting and women's and men's success in the elections, Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Miina Keski-Petäjä 09 1734 3240, Jaana Asikainen 09 1734 3506, vaalit@stat.fi

Director in charge: Riitta Harala

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Updated 2.4.2013