Varsinais-Suomi gains seat as Häme loses one

Varsinais-Suomi will gain a seat in Finland’s Parliament while Häme loses one in the 2027 election, Yle reports. The preliminary allocation is based on population figures from the end of October.

The Varsinais-Suomi electoral district will have 18 MPs, up from 17, while Häme will have 13, down from 14. Satakunta will retain its eight seats, narrowly avoiding a reduction.

The Digital and Population Data Services Agency published the preliminary figures on Monday. The allocation is based on the number of Finnish citizens living in each electoral district. The figures will be checked before the government confirms the final distribution. Åland, which has self-government, always has one MP.

The other districts will keep their current seat totals: Helsinki 23, Uusimaa 37, Pirkanmaa 20, Southeast Finland 15, Savo-Karelia 15, Vaasa 16, Central Finland 10, Oulu 18 and Lapland 6.

Satakunta’s seat was close to being taken by Helsinki. The article says a calculation made a few months later would probably have shifted a seat from Satakunta to Helsinki; the difference involved a few hundred residents in Satakunta and a few thousand in Helsinki. Without dramatic changes in population trends, the change is likely to come in the 2031 election.

Parliament has considered changing electoral districts and adopting a regional electoral model to prevent declining seat numbers from raising the effective vote threshold too high. Those reforms have not gone ahead. The next parliamentary election is on April 18, 2027, with advance voting from April 7 to 13.