Heinäluoma leads, Feldt-Ranta out

It has been a busy few days for Social Democratic Party internal wrangling. MTV3 polled (fi) Social Democratic district board members on who should be elected the party chair next summer. Current chair Heinäluoma romped home in first place with 53 percent of the vote, followed by Erkki Tuomioja at 22 percent. Jutta Urpilainen was third with eight percent and Tarja Filatov fourth with seven percent. The Urpilainen supporters need to find a new candidate, though, as Urpilainen announced today that she will run for vice chair.

In other Social Democratic news, party secretary Maarit Feldt-Ranta won't be seeking another term. I've found Feldt-Ranta's media skills lacking. However, while she was far from the solution to the party's problems, she wasn't their source, either. The name mooted as her successor (fi) is Ari Korhonen, the chair of the party's Varsinais-Suomi district.

In the linked blog post, MTV3's Timo Haapala hinted that the party secretary didn't look as easy for Feldt-Ranta as the party chair race for Heinäluoma, so it's possible that she jumped before she was pushed. Lending further credence to that theory, in today's Turun Sanomat SDP parliamentary group chair Filatov says (fi) the party needs a new secretary who isn't an MP.