Over 20 percent of Finns are ready to vote for the opposition Social Democratic Party of Finland (SPD) in the upcoming parliamentary election scheduled for April 14, a new Gallup poll for local media revealed on Thursday
HELSINKI (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st February, 2019) Over 20 percent of Finns are ready to vote for the opposition Social Democratic Party of Finland (SPD) in the upcoming parliamentary election scheduled for April 14, a new Gallup poll for local media revealed on Thursday.The poll was conducted from January 14 to February 14 among 2,688 respondents aged between 18 and 79. The margin of error does not exceed 2 percent. The pollster asked people what political force they would support if the elections were that day.
"SPD - 20.8% (-0.1% compared to the last poll held in January), Coalition Party - 18.6% (-0.9%), Center Party - 14.7% (-0.9%), 'Green League' - 13.6% (+0.7%), 'True Finns' - 11.4% (+1.7%), other parties less than 10%," the poll for Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat showed.
According to Gallup representative Sakari Nurmela, the state of internal affairs in the country favors the True Finns party. Nurmela explained that the party's rating increase was due to people deciding to vote for the strongly anti-immigration party following the multiple cases of sexual assault committed against minors in the Finnish city of Oulu in 2018-2019.
In January, the Finnish government released statistics that showed a 17 percent increase in the number of sexual abuse cases committed against minors in Finland in 2018. A quarter of sex crimes reported in the country was committed by foreigners, who make up only 5 percent of the total population of the country.
On Monday, the Finnish government published measures developed by a ministerial working group on migration to prevent and combat sexual offenses in general and crimes committed by immigrants. Measures included giving more consideration to criminal background when granting residence permits, providing more resources to internet police and improving cooperation between public authorities.
