The Social Democrats' election win | Esa Suominen, Jarkko Tontti | Negotiator 332

Summary

A month after Finland’s county and municipal elections of 13 April 2025, in which the SDP won both with 23.0 and 22.5 per cent and the Finns Party fell below eight — and two weeks after the government answered with an exceptionally right-wing tax package. Esa Suominen and Jarkko Tontti work through what changed and what did not.

Why the old explanation broke

Three previous elections had been explained by a red-green triangle, in which the SDP, the Greens and the Left Alliance share votes according to who can best stop the Finns Party. This time all three held or gained, so the movement came across the bloc line instead — above all from the Finns Party to the SDP — while many Finns Party supporters simply stayed home.

The reason lies in the type of contest. Support at the political extremes often rests on protest, and a municipal election is a poor vehicle for protest because there is no government and opposition: the decisions are taken jointly. A county election is thinner still, because the counties decide almost nothing — the money comes from the state and the duties from legislation.

The counties, and the money

Tontti’s position is that a third tier of administration in a country of five million is absurd and should be wound down. Suominen does not defend it so much as explain it: the counties exist because municipal reform failed and most municipalities were too weak to organise health and social care.

On funding he makes the concession that gives the episode its weight. Finland spends less on health and social care relative to GDP than Sweden or Denmark but spends it wrongly — cheap primary care, expensive specialist care, and a regional hospital network that is inefficient and politically untouchable. The age structure raises spending regardless, so the care promise has to be cut back.

Note on the chapter list

The show notes for this episode carry an even grid rather than real chapter marks, so no chapters are published on this page. Timestamps used in the long-form write-up were read from the subtitle track instead.

Watch

The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: Demarien vaalivoitto | Esa Suominen Jarkko Tontti | Neuvottelija 332. A Finnish edition of this episode is published at www.neuvottelija.fi.

In depth

The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode, with the election results checked against Yle, both guests’ affiliations disclosed, and the municipality count corrected: English · suomeksi.