1999 Finnish parliamentary election

21 March 1999
All 200 seats in Parliament 101 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	65.3%
First party Second party Third party   Leader Paavo Lipponen Esko Aho Sauli Niinistö Party SDP Centre National Coalition Last election 63 seats, 28.3% 44 seats, 19.9% 39 seats, 17.9% Seats won 51 48 46 Seat change 12 4 7 Popular vote 612,963 600,592 563,835 Percentage 22.9% 22.4% 21.0% Swing 5.4pp 2.6pp 3.1pp   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Suvi-Anne Siimes Satu Hassi Jan-Erik Enestam Party Left Alliance VIHR RKP Last election 22 seats, 11.2% 9 seats, 6.5% 11 seats, 5.1% Seats won 20 11 11 Seat change 2 2 0 Popular vote 291,675 194,846 137,330 Percentage 10.9% 7.3% 5.1% Swing 0.3pp 0.8pp 0.0pp   Seventh party Eighth party Ninth party   Leader Bjarne Kallis Risto Kuisma Timo Soini Party Christian League Reform Finns Last election 7 seats, 3.0% New party 1 seat, 1.3% (SMP) Seats won 10 1 1 Seat change 3 1 0 Popular vote 111,835 28,549 26,440 Percentage 4.2% 1.1% 1.0% Swing 1.1pp 1.1pp 0.3pp
Prime Minister before election Paavo Lipponen SDP Prime Minister after election Paavo Lipponen SDP

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Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 21 March 1999.^[1] Despite suffering significant losses, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) remained the largest party of the Eduskunta and Paavo Lipponen remained Prime Minister.

Background

Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen's five-party "rainbow government" consisting of the SDP, National Coalition Party, Left Alliance, Swedish People's Party and the Green League had been in power since April 1995. It had managed to keep Finland's economy growing, to reduce the state's budget deficit and to create jobs, although it had failed to halve the unemployment rate: in 1995, the unemployment had been 15.4% and in 1999, it still stood at 10.2%. This was, as the governing parties pointed out, still a better record than the previous centre-right government's performance; during its term between 1991 and 1995, the unemployment had risen from 6.6% to 15.4%.

Campaign

The largest opposition party, the Centre Party, tried to become the largest party overall, and to re-join the government. They called for labour reform, which they claimed would make it easier for employers to hire new employees and for small enterprises to operate. Finland's largest labour unions rejected the proposed work reform, claiming that it would reduce the employees' job security and would excessively increase the employers' power. The Centrists also accused the government of not improving the Finnish economy enough, and of not slowing down sufficiently the large internal migration of Finns from the rural towns and small cities to the large economic growth centres, like the Helsinki and Tampere regions.

Several parties hired as their candidates previously non-political or only locally politically active celebrities, such as Leena Harkimo, the manager of Helsinki's ice hockey team Jokerit, Lasse Virén, a former long-distance running Olympic champion, and Anni Sinnemäki, the songwriter of pop music group Ultra Bra. Some of these celebrities got elected. After the elections, Prime Minister Lipponen formed a new government of the same five parties. Only one of those parties left the government during the parliamentary term 1999-2003: the Greens moved into the opposition in May 2002, when the Parliament approved the construction of Finland's fifth nuclear power plant.^[2][3]

Results

Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/–
	Social Democratic Party	612,963	22.86	51	−12
	Centre Party	600,592	22.40	48	+4
	National Coalition Party	563,835	21.03	46	+7
	Left Alliance	291,675	10.88	20	−2
	Green League	194,846	7.27	11	+2
	Swedish People's Party	137,330	5.12	11	0
	Finnish Christian League	111,835	4.17	10	+3
	Reform Group	28,549	1.06	1	New
	Young Finns	28,084	1.05	0	−2
	Finns Party	26,440	0.99	1	New
	Communist Party	20,442	0.76	0	New
	Ecological Party the Greens	10,378	0.39	0	−1
	Alliance for Free Finland	10,104	0.38	0	0
	Liberals for Åland	5,870	0.22	1	0
	Pensioners for People	5,451	0.20	0	0
	Liberal People's Party	5,194	0.19	0	0
	Pensioners' Party	4,481	0.17	0	0
	Natural Law Party	3,903	0.15	0	0
	Åland Centre–Freeminded–Non-aligned	3,678	0.14	0	0
	Communist Workers' Party – For Peace and Socialism	3,455	0.13	0	0
	Åland Social Democrats	924	0.03	0	0
	Others	11,262	0.42	0	–
Total		2,681,291	100.00	200	0
Valid votes		2,681,291	98.94
Invalid/blank votes		28,804	1.06
Total votes		2,710,095	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		4,152,430	65.27
Source: Tilastokeskus,[4] ASUB

References