page_title: Finns Party
section_title: Founding of the Finns Party and its rise in popularity
hierarchical_section_title: Finns Party / History / Founding of the Finns Party and its rise in popularity
caption_attribution_description: English: Perussuomalaiset (The Finns Party) party stall at Hakaniemi square.
context_page_description: The Finns Party, formerly known in English as the True Finns, is a Finnish right-wing populist political party. It was founded in 1995 following the dissolution of the Finnish Rural Party.
  In the 2011 parliamentary election, the party won 19.1% of votes, becoming the third largest party in the Finnish Parliament. In the 2015 election the party got 17.7% of the votes, making it the parliament's second-largest party. The party was in opposition for the first 20 years of its existence. In 2015 it joined the government coalition formed by Prime Minister Sipilä. Following a 2017 split, over half of the party's MPs left the parliamentary group and were subsequently expelled from their party membership. This defector group, New Alternative, continued to support the government coalition, while the Finns Party went into opposition. It increased its representation from 38 to 39 seats in the 2019 parliament election.
  The party combines left-wing economic policies with conservative social values, socio-cultural authoritarianism, and ethnic nationalism.
context_section_description: In the summer of 1995, following the collapse of the Finnish Rural Party, the decision to found the Finns Party was made by Timo Soini, Raimo Vistbacka, Urpo Leppänen and Kari Bärlund. Soini had been the Rural Party's last party secretary and Vistbacka its last chairman and MP. The party collected the five thousand signatures needed for registration and was added to the official party register on 13 October 1995. The first party congress was held in November. Vistbacka was elected party chairman and Soini the party secretary.
  It took some time before the Finns Party gained ground in Finnish elections. At the time of its founding in 1995, the party's sole MP was Vistbacka, who was reelected in the 1999 election. In 2003, the party won three seats: besides Vistbacka, Soini and Tony Halme were elected. In the 2007, the party gained two further seats for a total of five. In the 2008 municipal election, the Finns Party were most successful in those districts where the Social Democrats and the Left Alliance lost most. In the 2011 election, the Centre Party suffered the largest blow from the Finns Party's success.
  According to a 2008–2009 study, Finns Party supporters viewed themselves as centrist: on a scale where 1 was extreme left and 10 was extreme right, the average supporter placed themselves at 5.4. According to the same study, the supporters were united by patriotism and social conservatism. A 2011 study indicated that the Finns Party was the most popular party among voters with an annual income of 35,000–50,000 euros, while over a quarter of the party's voters earn over 50,000 per year. The same study also indicated that the party's voters included a higher percentage of blue collar workers than those of the Social Democrats.
caption: True Finns stall at Hakaniemi square, Helsinki in 2010.
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