Government priorities and ratings

Earlier this week Helsingin Sanomat published a poll (fi) asking what are the most important goals for the new government. Below are the percentages of respondents who found the goal either the most important or the second most important.

1. securing welfare services 49 (most important 31 + second most important 18)
2. reducing poverty and social inequality 38 (22 + 16)
3. restraining climate change and environmental protection 28 (12 + 18)
4. preparing for the population's aging 28 (11 + 17)
5. fighting unemployment 25 (11 + 14)
6. lowering taxes 15 (7 + 8)
7. taking care of national defense capability 6 (2 + 4)
8. fighting crime and terrorism 5 (1 + 4)
9. can't say 4 (2 + 2)
10. something else 3 (2 + 1)

I've written this before, but it bears repeating: the election result should not be taken as a green light from the electorate to dismantle the welfare state. Such moves would not be received well, in all likelihood. (On that note, Jacob Christensen wrote a series of posts on the "instant failure" of the centre-right government in Sweden that can serve as a warning example: part 1, part 2, and part 3.)

So far the public seems reasonably pleased with what they're getting. In the same poll respondents were asked to grade parties and Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre Party). Here are the percentages of respondents who thought the entity had succeeded either quite well or very well in its tasks.

1. Matti Vanhanen 82 (very well 18 + quite well 64)
2. government 69 (5 + 64)
3. Centre Party 64 (5 + 59)
4. National Coalition Party 61 (7 + 54)
5. Green League 48 (3 + 45)
6. Swedish People's Party 46 (2 + 44)
7. True Finns 43 (6 + 37)
8. Social Democratic Party 37 (3 + 34)
9. Christian Democrats 35 (2 + 33)
10. Left Alliance 27 (1 + 26)

Conclusion: while Vanhanen is significantly more popular than the government he leads, the government is popular enough that opposition parties consistently rank below government parties in approval.