The 2017 Finns Party leadership election was held in

Jyväskylä Jyväskylä () is a city and municipality in Finland in the western part of the Finnish Lakeland. It is located about 150 km north-east from Tampere, the third largest city in Finland; and about 270 km north from Helsinki, the capital of ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

, on June 10, 2017, to elect the new chair of the

Finns Party The Finns Party, formerly known as the True Finns ( fi, Perussuomalaiset, PS, sv, Sannfinländarna, Sannf.), is a right-wing populist political party in Finland. It was founded in 1995 following the dissolution of the Finnish Rural Party. The ...

. All members of the party who had paid their subscription were allowed to vote in the election. The incumbent party chair

Timo Soini Timo Juhani Soini (born 30 May 1962) is a Finnish politician who is the co-founder and former leader of the Finns Party. He served as Deputy Prime Minister of Finland from 2015 to 2017 and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2015 to 2019. He was e ...

, who had led the party since 1997, did not run for the leadership this time. MEP

Jussi Halla-aho Jussi Kristian Halla-aho (born 27 April 1971) is a Finnish politician who has served as a member of the Parliament of Finland from 2011 to 2014 and again since 2019, and as the leader of the Finns Party from 10 June 2017Sampo Terho In Finnish mythology, the ''Sampo'' () is a magical device or object described in many different ways that was constructed by the blacksmith Ilmarinen and that brought riches and good fortune to its holder, akin to the horn of plenty (cornucop ...

, Minister for European Affairs, Culture and Sport, were considered the strongest candidates to succeed him.

Leena Meri Leena Kristiina Meri (born 12 April 1968) is a Finnish politician, representing the Finns Party in the Parliament of Finland. She has served in the Parliament since 2015 and in the City Council of Hyvinkää since 2013. Meri run to the Parliament ...

and

Veera Ruoho Veera Marita Ruoho (née Liukkonen; born 4 August 1969 in Hirvensalmi) is a Finnish politician and an Olympic Taekwondo practitioner. She participated in the Women's Heavyweight competition in Taekwondo at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Au ...

, two Members of the Finnish Parliament, and Riku Nevanpää, a local politician, also ran for party chair. Raimo Rautiola, another local politician, initially stood for election but pulled out of the race on 5 June. The election was won by Halla-aho who received 949 votes in the first round, 56% of the total vote. Terho received 629 votes. In addition,

Laura Huhtasaari Laura Huhtasaari (born 30 March 1979) is a Finnish politician, businesswoman and teacher. As a member of the Finns Party, she has represented Satakunta in the Parliament of Finland from April 2015 to July 2019. She was the Finns Party candidate f ...

was chosen as the first deputy leader, while

Teuvo Hakkarainen Teuvo Hakkarainen (born 12 April 1960, in Viitasaari) is a Finnish politician and member of the European Parliament, representing the Finns Party. Before being elected to the European Parliament in the 2019 election, he had been a member of the ...

and

Juho Eerola Juho Seppo Antero Eerola (born 24 February 1975 in Kymi, Finland) is a Finnish politician of the Finns Party. He was elected to the Finnish Parliament in the 2011 election. He is also a member of the city council of Kotka. In the True Finns' par ...

won the races for second and third deputy leaders of the party, respectively. The incumbent party secretary Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo maintained her position after a vote. These selections were characterised by newspaper '' Helsingin Sanomat'' as a takeover by the anti-immigration wing of the Finns party, from the allegedly more moderate followers of the former leader Soini. Halla-aho's rise to power was described as a "unique event in Finnish political history" by the Prime Minister and

Centre Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics * Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentri ...

leader

Juha Sipilä Juha Petri Sipilä (; born 25 April 1961) is a Finnish politician who served as Prime Minister of Finland from 2015 to 2019. A relative newcomer to politics, he has a successful background in business. He was the leader of the Centre Party fr ...

. According to ''Bloomberg News'', the results of the leadership election put the future of the ruling coalition in jeopardy. On 12 June, both Sipilä and NCP leader

Petteri Orpo Antti Petteri Orpo (born 3 November 1969) is a Finnish politician serving as the leader of the National Coalition Party since 2016. He has previously served as Deputy Prime Minister of Finland from 2017 to 2019, Minister of Finance from 2016 to 2 ...

tweeted that in their view, they could not carry on co-operating with Halla-aho-led Finns Party. On 13 June, twenty Members of Parliament left the Finns Party parliamentary group and formed a new group of their own, called New Alternative (which later became a party called Blue Reform). Included in this group of defectors were former leader and current Foreign Minister Soini, as well as all the other Finns Party Ministers (Terho, Jari Lindström,

Jussi Niinistö Jussi Niinistö (born 27 October 1970 in Helsinki) is a Finnish politician and a former Minister of Defence. Since 2011, he has been a member of Finnish Parliament, representing the Finns Party 2011–2017 and Blue Reform since 2017. By occupati ...

Pirkko Mattila Pirkko Anneli Mattila is a Finnish politician and a former Member of the Finnish Parliament, representing the Blue Reform party at the end of her tenure. She was first elected MP in the 2011 general election. Mattila replaced Hanna Mäntylä as ...

) and Speaker of Parliament Maria Lohela.

Notable endorsements

Jussi Halla-aho

, MP for

Central Finland Central Finland ( fi, Keski-Suomi; sv, Mellersta Finland) is a region ( / ) in Finland. It borders the regions of Päijät-Häme, Pirkanmaa, South Ostrobothnia, Central Ostrobothnia, North Ostrobothnia, North Savo, and South Savo. The city o ...

. *

, MP for

Satakunta Satakunta (in both Finnish and Swedish, ) is a region ( / ) of Finland, part of the former Western Finland Province. It borders the regions of Southwest Finland, Pirkanmaa, South Ostrobothnia and Ostrobothnia. The capital city of the region ...

. *

Olli Immonen Olli Immonen (born 12 February 1986) is a member of the Finnish Parliament for the Finns Party and a former chairman of the nationalist organization Suomen Sisu. Immonen was born in Nivala, and received national attention in July 2015 after wr ...

, MP for Oulu.

Sampo Terho

* Jari Lindström, Minister for Labour, MP for South-Eastern Finland. * Maria Lohela, Speaker of the Parliament, MP for Finland Proper. *

, Minister for Defence, MP for

Uusimaa Uusimaa (; sv, Nyland, ; both lit. 'new land') is a region of Finland. It borders the regions of Southwest Finland, Tavastia Proper (Kanta-Häme), Päijänne Tavastia (Päijät-Häme), and Kymenlaakso. Finland's capital and largest city, ...

Notable endorsements

Jussi Halla-aho

Sampo Terho

Opinion polls

Results

See also

References

Further reading