The latest poll published by YLE shows that support for the populist anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party has plummeted, diving in one month by 4.3 percentage points to 10.7% and since the April parliamentary elections by as much as 7 percentage points.
It is the biggest fall ever seen in such a short time in the polls by a party.
The exceptionally poor result of the PS boosted the Green League to fourth place in the poll with 12.7%.
The biggest surprise is the Social Democratic Party, which saw its support rise by 3.9 percentage points to 18.3%.
While all government parties saw their support fall, none of them suffered such a sharp drop as the PS.
The Center Party continues to be the biggest party in Finland with 21.7% (-1.2%) with the National Coalition Party seeing its support fall by 0.9 percentage points to 18.0%.
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Writes YLE in English:
“The poll comes as Finns Party leader and Foreign Minister Timo Soini has to deal with an insurgency in his party against the government’s immigration policy. The party’s third vice-chair Sebastian Tynkkynen on Monday published an appeal for a special meeting of the party’s organs to vote on continued participation in the government after what Tynkkynen claims is a departure from the government program on the issue of immigration.”
While some are very happy about the opinion poll result, it may have a negative impact on migrants and minorities because they PS will begin to step up their hostility and rhetoric against such groups.
* The Finnish name of the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English-language names adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.