2015 Finnish parliamentary election


Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 19 April 2015, with advance voting taking place from 8 to 14 April. The 200 members of eduskunta were elected with the proportional D'Hondt method.
There were 4,463,333 people entitled to vote in Finland and abroad.

Background

Previous government coalition

The incumbent government was formed by a four party coalition, composed of the National Coalition Party, Social Democratic Party, Swedish People's Party and the Christian Democrats as well as the MP for Åland. Left Alliance and the Green League were initially also part of the governing coalition, but both left in 2014.
On 22 June 2011, the parliament elected Jyrki Katainen as prime minister by a vote of 118–72; two Left Alliance MPs voted against Katainen, for which they were formally reprimanded by the Left Alliance parliamentary group. They were subsequently expelled from the group, reducing the government majority from 126 MPs to 124. In March 2014 the Left Alliance announced that it was leaving the cabinet, citing the party's opposition to budget cuts in social welfare programs, which had been agreed to by the other five parties. This reduced the government's majority to 112 MPs.
In April 2014 Jyrki Katainen announced that he would not seek another term as the chairman of the National Coalition Party. The NCP chose Alexander Stubb as its new chairman in June, and he subsequently became the new Prime Minister. In September 2014 the Green League announced that it was leaving the cabinet. The Greens were opposed to the other governing parties' decision to grant Fennovoima a licence for building a nuclear power plant in Pyhäjoki. The Greens' departure cut the government's majority to 102 MPs.

Electoral district changes

In 2013 the parliament decided to merge certain electoral districts to create larger districts: the electoral districts of Northern Savonia and North Karelia have been merged into a new district called Savonia-Karelia, while the electoral districts of Kymi and Southern Savonia have been merged into a new district called South-Eastern Finland.
Electoral districtSeats
01 Helsinki22
02 Uusimaa35
03 Finland Proper17
04 Satakunta8
05 Åland1
06 Tavastia14
07 Pirkanmaa19
08 South-East Finland17
09 Savonia-Karelia16
10 Vaasa16
11 Central Finland10
12 Oulu18
13 Lapland7

Opinion polls

Results

Government formation

As the leader of the largest party, Juha Sipilä of Centre was tasked with forming the new government coalition. In early May Sipilä announced that he will seek to form a right-leaning majority coalition consisting of the three largest parties – the Centre Party, the Finns Party and the National Coalition Party. The coalition negotiations were successful and led to the formation of the Sipilä cabinet on 29 May.