Social Democratic Party of Finland

Social Democratic Party of Finland (Finnish: Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue, SDP, colloquially demarit; Swedish: Finlands Socialdemokratiska Parti) is one of the major political parties in Finland, along with the Centre Party and the National Coalition Party. The SDP has been in the Cabinet for long periods of time, most recently from 1995–2007, and has set many fundamental policies of the Finnish state. SDP's social-democratic policies are generally more moderate than those of the parliament's other left-leaning party, the Left Alliance. SDP aims to group together people in order to achieve social-democratic goals: a society in which freedom, equality, solidarity and co-operation thrives in a peaceful and clean environment. The SDP is a member of the Socialist International and Party of European Socialists. The SDP has a close relationship with the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK).

In the early 20th century SDP steadily commanded some 40% of the vote, but after the Finnish Civil War of 1918, communists split from the party to form the Communist Party of Finland. After that, SDP has commanded 20–29% of the total votes in all elections where communists or their fronts have been allowed to operate. Even after support for the communist electoral organization SKDL dwindled in the 1980s, SDP's share of the popular vote has remained at 21–28 percent. The Social Democratic Party has about 59,000 members. Jutta Urpilainen is the party's current leader. Tarja Halonen was SDP's winning candidate for presidency of Finland in 2000 and 2006. The two preceding presidents were also SDP members. In the 2007 parliamentary election, SDP received 21.4 percent of the vote and lost 8 seats to bring its total down to 45. In 2008 municipal elections, SDP continued its decline with the largest drop since 1960.