Swedish People's Party of Finland - Political Positions

Political Positions

The Swedish language is one of the two official languages of Finland. The SFP has as its main raison d'être the protection and strengthening of the position of the Swedish language in Finland.

The Swedish People's Party of Finland has the most eclectic profile of any of the political parties in Finland, its members and supporters including (chiefly):

• fishermen and farmers from the Swedish-speaking coastal areas.
• small-town dwellers from the adjacent Swedish-speaking and bi-lingual towns.
• green-minded and left-leaning middle-class intellectuals.
• liberals in general, who currently have no representation of their own in the Finnish parliament, and who as such benefit from the predominantly liberal values of the SFP.

Although the SFP represents a small minority of Finland, Swedish mother tongue per se is not much of a political handicap. Several times Swedish speaking presidential candidates have gathered considerable support, although not necessarily as candidates for the Swedish People's Party of Finland:

• In 1956 the Swedish-speaking Social Democrat Fagerholm got one elector's vote less than needed to be elected, and the Agrarian Urho Kekkonen was elected.
• In 1994 the SFP's candidate Elisabeth Rehn was defeated by the Social Democrat candidate Martti Ahtisaari, also with a narrow margin (53.9% to 46.1%).