ABSTRACT
Local elections are the only subnational elections in Finland. They are organized every fourth year and must be held separately from national elections and referenda. After experiencing a downward trend beginning in the 1990s, turnout for local elections has stabilized at a level of around 58%, about 10% lower than for parliamentary elections. The Finnish electoral system is an open-list proportional system with compulsory preferential voting. Local politics in Finland is highly party politicized. In the local elections of 2017, parties represented in the Finnish parliament won 97.4% of the total number of council seats. The preconditions for local elections differ considerably between small rural municipalities and large urban municipalities, varying in the degree of competition for council seats as well as in the patterns of support for various political parties.
