A Fairer Finland

Election program of the SDP 2025 – A Fairer Finland

We want to create a society that is fair for everyone. Fairness can be defined as both justice and ensuring that political decisions do not place an undue burden on anyone. We believe that fairness means sharing responsibility in a balanced way, ensuring that the foundations of the welfare state remain strong.

We want to create a Finland where people can access care and treatment without unnecessary waits. Instead of being bounced from one doctor to the next, we want everyone to have an assigned doctor and nurse. We want to implement a two-week treatment time guarantee throughout Finland and move towards a personal doctor and personal nurse model that truly works.

To us, it is important that negative trends in children’s and young people’s learning outcomes are reversed. We want schools to be safe, positive environments for children and young people to learn in and for teachers to teach in. We are seeking to reduce class sizes, so that teachers can devote more time to their pupils.

Politics always involves making value judgments. These choices become even more important when public finances are tight and there simply is not enough for everything we might like to cover. Our current right-wing government is taking Finland in the wrong direction. It therefore falls onto the shoulders of municipalities and wellbeing services counties to make decisions that improve the lives of all Finns.

We want to build a fairer Finland, and fair choices are also sensible.

We believe that it is not fair that while people are being encouraged to move to cheaper homes, housing construction has stalled, unemployment is growing, and the government is putting the brakes on the construction of reasonably priced housing. For this reason, we want to get housing construction up to speed again in municipalities.

We believe that it is not fair that the government is scrapping the treatment time guarantee and abolishing overnight emergency services at hospitals, all the while also sinking hundreds of millions into private healthcare businesses. Instead, we would prefer to use shared funds to strengthen public healthcare and speed up access to treatment.

We do not want to drive nurses, teachers, police, retail workers, hospitality staff and many others into a race to the bottom when it comes to their pay. We want to develop work together, by agreeing and building, rather than tearing down and arguing.

Many Finns are finding themselves wondering whether there is any fairness still left in politics. We want to return to a place where people have faith in creating a fair society, without imposing an unreasonable burden on anyone.

This is what is at stake in this spring’s county and municipal elections. A fairer Finland.