The Left Alliance is a left-wing

Left-wing politics

In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...

 political party

Political party

A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

 in Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

. It was founded on the basis of the Finnish People's Democratic League

Finnish People's Democratic League

Finnish People's Democratic League was a Finnish political organisation with the aim of uniting those left of the Finnish Social Democratic Party...

 and the Communist Party of Finland

Communist Party of Finland

The Communist Party of Finland was a communist political party in Finland. The SKP was a section of Comintern and illegal in Finland until 1944.SKP did not participate in any elections with its own name. Instead, front organisations were used...

 in 1990.

In parliamentary elections, Left Alliance share of the vote has been close to ten percent. The Left Alliance had three portfolios in the two cabinets of Paavo Lipponen

Paavo Lipponen

Paavo Tapio Lipponen is a Finnish politician and former reporter. He was Prime Minister of Finland from 1995 to 2003, and Chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Finland from 1993 to 2005...

 (1995-2003). It is a member of the Nordic Green Left Alliance

Nordic Green Left Alliance

The Nordic Green Left Alliance is an alliance of Nordic left-wing parties, founded in Reykjavík, Iceland on February 1, 2004.The member organizations of NGLA are: Left Alliance Left-Green Movement Left Party Socialist Left Party Socialist People's Party Republicans Inuit Ataqatigiit Most of...

. The party currently has 12 MPs

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 in the Finnish Eduskunta: it won 14 seats in the latest election, but two MPs were expelled from the parliamentary group after repeatedly breaking from the official party line. The party lost its only remaining MEP

Member of the European Parliament

A Member of the European Parliament is a person who has been elected to the European Parliament. The name of MEPs differ in different languages, with terms such as europarliamentarian or eurodeputy being common in Romance language-speaking areas.When the European Parliament was first established,...

 in the 2009 election.

The party organ is the weekly Kansan Uutiset

Kansan Uutiset

Kansan Uutiset is a Finnish weekly newspaper. It is the party organ of Left Alliance.Kansan Uutiset was founded in 1957 as the joint organ of Communist Party of Finland and Finnish People's Democratic League , both of which, until then, had had their own papers, Työkansan Sanomat and Vapaa Sana...

.

History

The party was founded as a result of a merger between the Finnish People's Democratic League

Finnish People's Democratic League

Finnish People's Democratic League was a Finnish political organisation with the aim of uniting those left of the Finnish Social Democratic Party...

 (SKDL), Democratic Alternative

Democratic Alternative (Finland)

Democratic Alternative was a political party in Finland. Deva was formed in 1986 by expelled members of the Communist Party of Finland and its mass front Finnish People's Democratic League...

 (an orthodox pro-Soviet communist party), the Finnish Women's Democratic League (SNDL) and the Communist Party of Finland

Communist Party of Finland

The Communist Party of Finland was a communist political party in Finland. The SKP was a section of Comintern and illegal in Finland until 1944.SKP did not participate in any elections with its own name. Instead, front organisations were used...

 (SKP). The founding meeting was held in April 1990 in Helsinki

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

, following the publishing of the April Declaration, which emphasised various ideals.

The party's short history has been characterised by internal disputes and bickering, as it was formed by people with very different views on society. There have been several defections from the Left Alliance to the Social Democratic Party

Social Democratic Party of Finland

The Social Democratic Party of Finland is one of the three major political parties in Finland, along with the Centre Party and the National Coalition Party. Jutta Urpilainen is the current SDP leader. The party has been in the Finnish government cabinet for long periods and has set many...

 and the newly formed Communist Party of Finland. In 2005, the party's former secretary and Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions

Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions

The Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions, usually referred to by the acronym SAK is the largest trade union confederation in Finland...

's assistant head Matti Viialainen formed a society to promote merger between the two largest Finnish left-wing political parties, the Left Alliance and the Social Democrats. This caused an outrage within the Left Alliance, and Viialainen was condemned for wanting to break up the party. Viialainen would subsequently leave the party and run for parliament on the Social Democrat ticket in 2007.

In 2006, the party's leader Suvi-Anne Siimes

Suvi-Anne Siimes

Sini Maaria Suvi-Anne Siimes is a former chair of the Finnish Left Alliance. She quit the party in 2006 because she did not want to support the party's former taistoists ....

 announced her resignation from the post, and the party, as a result of long-standing feuds with the leftist section of the party. On May 13, 2006, Martti Korhonen

Martti Korhonen

Martti Korhonen is a Finnish politician and member of Finnish Parliament, representing the Left Alliance. He was first elected to the parliament in 1991 and as the chairperson of his party in 2006. Korhonen served as the Minister of Regional and Municipal affairs under Paavo Lipponen's second...

 was elected as the new party leader. He was followed by Paavo Arhinmäki

Paavo Arhinmäki

Paavo Erkki Arhinmäki is a Finnish politician, the incumbent Minister for Culture and Sport and a member of the Finnish Parliament, representing the Left Alliance, whose leader he has been since June 2009. He was first elected to the Finnish Parliament in the 2007 election and reelected in 2011...

 in June 2009, following the party's bad performance in the 2009 EU parliamentary election.

Ideology

Left Alliance party program adopted by the 5th Party Congress 16 June 2007: The fundamental values of Left Alliance are equality, freedom and sustainable development. Democracy must be strengthened. Democracy must be stronger than the power of capital. Challenging the global capitalism. Getting world into solidarity and stop Finnish polarisation. Freedom and the right to work and income for all people. Environmentally conscious Finland.

Some in the party accept the EU and others reject it. The younger generation is more pro-EU than the older.

Chairs

• Claes Andersson
  Claes Andersson
  Claes-Johan Rudolf Andersson is a Finland-Swedish psychiatrist, author, musician, politician and former member of the Finnish Parliament, representing the Left Alliance and the Finnish People's Democratic League. He was member of Finnish Parliament in 1987-1999 and 2007-2008.-External links:*...
  
   (1990–1998)
• Suvi-Anne Siimes
  Suvi-Anne Siimes
  Sini Maaria Suvi-Anne Siimes is a former chair of the Finnish Left Alliance. She quit the party in 2006 because she did not want to support the party's former taistoists ....
  
   (1998–2006)
• Martti Korhonen
  Martti Korhonen
  Martti Korhonen is a Finnish politician and member of Finnish Parliament, representing the Left Alliance. He was first elected to the parliament in 1991 and as the chairperson of his party in 2006. Korhonen served as the Minister of Regional and Municipal affairs under Paavo Lipponen's second...
  
   (2006–2009)
• Paavo Arhinmäki
  Paavo Arhinmäki
  Paavo Erkki Arhinmäki is a Finnish politician, the incumbent Minister for Culture and Sport and a member of the Finnish Parliament, representing the Left Alliance, whose leader he has been since June 2009. He was first elected to the Finnish Parliament in the 2007 election and reelected in 2011...
  
   (2009–)

Elections results

b>Parliamentary elections Year MPs Votes 1991 Finnish parliamentary election, 1991 The Finnish Parliamentary election of 1991, held on March 17, was historic, since it led to the Centre Party becoming the largest parliamentary party, forming a purely centre-right government for the first time after 1966 The Finnish Parliamentary election of 1991, held on March 17, was historic,... 19 274 639 10.08 % 1995 Finnish parliamentary election, 1995 The 32nd elections to the Finnish parliament were held on March 19, 1995. The previous centre-right cabinet fell, as the Social Democrats made strong gains and achieved the best result of any party after the Second World War... 22 310 340 11.16 % 1999 Finnish parliamentary election, 1999 The 1999 Finnish parliamentary election was held on March 21, 1999. Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen's Social Democrats remained the largest party of the Eduskunta, despite significant losses... 20 291 675 10.88 % 2003 Finnish parliamentary election, 2003 The Finnish parliamentary election of 2003 was the 34th election to the Eduskunta , held on 16 March 2003 after the termination of the previous parliamentary term... 19 277 152 9.93 % 2007 Finnish parliamentary election, 2007 The Finnish parliamentary election of 2007 was the 35th election to the Eduskunta , held on 18 March 2007 after the termination of the previous parliamentary term. Early voting was possible from the 7–13 March. Two hundred MPs were elected from 15 constituencies.Election themes included a reduction... 17 244 296 8.82 % 2011 Finnish parliamentary election, 2011 An election to the Eduskunta was held on 17 April 2011 after the termination of the previous parliamentary term. Advance voting, which included voting by Finnish expatriates, was held between 6 and 12 April with a turnout of 31.2%.... 14 238 437 8.15 %

Municipal>elections Year Councillors Votes 1992 1 319 310 757 11.67 % 1996 1 128 246 597 10.37 % 2000 1 027 219 671 9.88 % 2004 987 228 358 9.56 % 2008 833 224 170 8.78 %

b>European parliament elections Year MEPs Votes 1996 European Parliament election, 1996 (Finland) The European Parliament election of 1996 in Finland was the first election of the Finnish delegation to the European Parliament.-Background:In 1996, Finland had a population of 5.1 million . The government was a broad coalition led by the social democrat Paavo Lipponen... 2 236 490 10.51 % 1999 European Parliament election, 1999 (Finland) The European Parliament election of 1999 in Finland was the election of the delegation from Finland to the European Parliament in 1999.-Results:-References:... 1 112 757 9.08 % 2004 European Parliament election, 2004 (Finland) The European Parliament election of 2004 in Finland was the election of MEP representing Finland constituency for the 2004-2009 term of the European Parliament. It was part of the wider 2004 European election. The vote took place on June 13... 1 151 291 9.13 % 2009 European Parliament election, 2009 (Finland) The European Parliament election of 2009 in Finland was the election of the delegation from Finland to the European Parliament in 2009.Finland uses the open list d'Hondt method, where voters vote for an individual, but the individual's vote is counted primarily for the party and secondarily for the... 0 98 690 5.93 %

Presidenti>l elections Year Candidate Votes 1994 Finnish presidential election, 1994 Presidential elections were held in Finland on 16 January 1994, with a second round on 6 February. It was the first time the President had been solely elected by a popular vote and saw Martti Ahtisaari defeat Elisabeth Rehn in the second round. Voter turnout was 78.4% in the first round and 78.7%... Claes Andersson Claes Andersson Claes-Johan Rudolf Andersson is a Finland-Swedish psychiatrist, author, musician, politician and former member of the Finnish Parliament, representing the Left Alliance and the Finnish People's Democratic League. He was member of Finnish Parliament in 1987-1999 and 2007-2008.-External links:*... 122 820 3.8 % 2000 Finnish presidential election, 2000 Presidential elections were held in Finland on 16 January 2000, with a second round on 6 February. The result was a victory for Tarja Halonen of the Social Democratic Party, who became the country's first female President. During the elections Halonen was the incumbent Minister for Foreign... none n/a n/a 2006 Finnish presidential election, 2006 The Finnish Presidential election of 2006 saw the re-election of Tarja Halonen as President of Finland for a second six-year term.The first round of voting in Finnish presidential elections always takes place on the third Sunday of January, in this case 15 January 2006... supported Tarja Halonen Tarja Halonen Tarja Kaarina Halonen is the incumbent President of Finland. The first female to hold the office, Halonen had previously been a member of the parliament from 1979 to 2000 when she resigned after her election to the presidency... n/a n/a

External links

• Left Alliance website