Finland Times

The party´s support declined by 1.0 percent in February and 2.1 percent in in January.

But the popularity of the party is still highest among the political parties in the country with the popularity of 19.8 percent, said the report.

The report also said that the popularity of the opposition Perussuomalainen Party (True Finns) has been raised to the second place with 18,4 percent support. 

The Party secretary of Kokoomus,  Taru Tujunen, however, claimed that the popularity of the party did not changed and termed the opinion polls as random changes.

´´The changes were detected based on number of queries from those people who declared their party affiliation, ´´  said Tujunen expressing reaction to the opinion polls results, adding that the own research conducted by the party did not find any syndrome of declining the popularity.

According to the YLE survey report, the Keskusta (Centre) party secured the position of the  third largest political party of the country with the support of 18.3 percent and the Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue  (Social Democrat Party) as fourth with 18.0 percent popularity.   

earlier, the  Vihreät (Green Party) and Perussuomalainen (True Finn) have witnessed a significant growth in their membership compared to that of other parties after the last parliamentary polls held in 2011.

The Perussuomalainen has gained 3,000 new members after the elections, with the total number of party members standing at 8,200 at present.

After the 2011 elections, 3,000 members have joined the party, although many of the old members left at the same time, said Perussuomalainen Register Manager Heidi Ronkainen.

Meanwhile, the Vihreät now has about 8,000 members, said Vihreät Register Manager Risto Kankaapää.

The total membership of the country’s four major political parties  – the Keskusta (Centre Party), Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue (Social Democratic Party), Kansallinen Kokoomus  (National Coalition Party) and Vasemmistoliitto (Left Alliance) - now stands at around 25,000, although the number was more than 500000 three decades ago.