page_title: Finland
section_title: Parliament
hierarchical_section_title: Finland / Politics / Parliament
caption_attribution_description: English: Parliament building in Helsinki, Finland. Suomi: Eduskuntatalo, Helsinki
context_page_description: Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country located in Northern Europe. Finland shares land borders with Sweden to the west, Russia to the east, and Norway to the north and is defined by the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south that are part of the Baltic Sea. Finland has a population of approximately 5.5 million, making it the 25th-most populous country in Europe. With an area of 338,455 square kilometres, Finland is the eighth-largest country in Europe, and the most sparsely populated country in the European Union. Helsinki, the capital of Finland, is the largest city in the country.
  Finland is a parliamentary republic consisting of 19 regions and 310 municipalities. The archipelago of the Åland Islands located southwest of the mainland is the only autonomous region of Finland. The climate in Finland varies due to the country's relatively vast latitudinal differences; southern Finland is classified as having a humid continental climate with the rest of the country being characterised by a boreal climate. Finland can be considered to have a mainly boreal forest biome.
context_section_description: The 200-member unicameral Parliament of Finland (Finnish: Eduskunta, Swedish: Riksdag) exercises supreme legislative authority in the country. It may alter the constitution and ordinary laws, dismiss the cabinet, and override presidential vetoes. Its acts are not subject to judicial review; the constitutionality of new laws is assessed by the parliament's constitutional law committee. The parliament is elected for a term of four years using the proportional D'Hondt method within a number of multi-seat constituencies through the most open list multi-member districts. Various parliament committees listen to experts and prepare legislation. The speaker of the parliament is Anu Vehviläinen (Centre Party).
  Since universal suffrage was introduced in 1906, the parliament has been dominated by the Centre Party (former Agrarian Union), the National Coalition Party, and the Social Democrats. These parties have enjoyed approximately equal support, and their combined vote has totalled about 65–80% of all votes. Their lowest common total of MPs, 121, was reached in the 2011 elections. For a few decades after 1944, the Communists were a strong fourth party. Due to the electoral system of proportional representation, and the relative reluctance of voters to switch their support between parties, the relative strengths of the parties have commonly varied only slightly from one election to another. However, there have been some long-term trends, such as the rise and fall of the Communists during the Cold War; the steady decline into insignificance of the Liberals and its predecessors from 1906 to 1980; and the rise of the Green League since 1983. In the 2011 elections, the Finns Party achieved exceptional success, increasing its representation from 5 to 39 seats, surpassing the Centre Party.
  The autonomous province of Åland, which forms a federacy with Finland, elects one member to the parliament, who traditionally joins the parliamentary group of the Swedish People's Party of Finland. (The province also holds elections for its own permanent regional council, and in the 2011 elections, Åland Centre was the largest party.)
  The Parliament can be dissolved by a recommendation of the Prime Minister, endorsed by the President. This procedure has never been used, although the parliament was dissolved eight times under the pre-2000 constitution, when this action was the sole prerogative of the president.
  After the parliamentary elections on 19 April 2015, the seats were divided among eight parties as follows:
caption: The Parliament of Finland's main building
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