92 European Journal of Political Research Political Data Yearbook 57: 92–97, 2018 doi: 10.1111/2047-8852.12219 Finland: Political development and data for 2017 EMILIA PALONEN University of Helsinki, Finland Introduction The year 2017 witnessed a government crisis as one of the coalition government’s parties, or at least its parliamentary group, the True Finns (PS) split.The Sipilä government pushed through a regional reform package and social and health services reform that would be organized at the regional level instead of at the municipality and small regions level. Reform law packages in previous years had prepared these reforms, but they faced popular criticism and regional elections laws were not passed to prepare for elections in 2018. Tightening the approach to immigration and an active job-seeking model were debated. Local elections in 2017 saw the Green Party (VIHR) overtaking the PS.Both the Finnish government’s Basic Income pilot that started in 2017 and the celebration of a century of independence on 6 December 2017 gained international attention. Election report The local elections were held on 9 April 2017: as the seats are assigned according to a proportional open-list system in both local and national – as well as potentially after the regional reform also regional – elections, local elections are significant to the key politicians in Finland. They were also a measure of the parties’ support. Only the VIHR, under Ville Niinistö, clearly increased its vote (by 3.9 percentage points to 12.5 per cent). Demonstrating a national coverage the VIHR overtook Timo Soini’s PS (8.8 per cent) and moved into fourth position, just five percentage points from the Centre Party (KESK) of Prime Minister Sipilä (17.5 per cent).Cities where the VIHR were the largest party included the university town of Jyväskylä and Nokia. The support of the coalition partner National Coalition (KOK) was the strongest at 20.7 per cent, while opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP) gained 19.4 per cent of the vote. In Helsinki, the KOK gained a victory over the VIHR with strong personal support for the first elected mayor, Jan Vapaavuori, MP (2003–15) and Vice-President of the European Investment Bank (2015–17). Previously, the City Council had elected a civil servant mayor. In the PS, both party-leader candidates Jussi Halla-aho and Sampo Terho ran in Helsinki: Halla-aho won over the Soini-loyal traditionalist, as did his anti-immigration fraction colleagues in cities such as Turku and Pori.Furthermore, challenging the KESK, the maverick politician Paavo Väyrynen (MEP, KESK) won a seat in Helsinki city council for his small Citizen’s Party (Kansalaispuolue) formed in 2016, while the KESK and the Finnish Communist Party (Suomen kommunistinen puolue) lost its council seat. Equally, the Feminist Party (Feministinen puolue) C  2018 European Consortium for Political Research Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd