University students in Helsinki (HYY and SHS) and Tampere (TREY) have elected their representatives to the student unions’ highest decision-making bodies, the Representative Councils. The elections took place at the three student unions at the turn of October–November.

The student union Representative Council elections take place every other year, except for Student Union of Hanken School of Economics (SHS), where the elections are held every year. However, the term of the Representative Councils elected now will only last for one year as the Student Union of the University of Helsinki (HYY) and the Student Union of Tampere University (TREY) are moving to organise their Representative Council elections in the same years as other student unions.

For SHS, the voting percentage increased significantly to 36%. For TREY, the voting percentage increased slightly to 29%. For HYY, the voting percentage remained the same as in the previous elections at approximately 32%. The voting percentage for all of the elections was 31%.

“Elections are the best of times, and it was great to see some active campaigning and hard-hitting debate during the elections. Compared to the previous elections, political groups increased their support while, correspondingly, the popularity of independent groups took a hit,” says Roope Tukia, secretary general, SYL.

In total, 672 students put themselves forward as candidates. Compared to the elections two years ago, the number of candidates decreased by approximately 10%. In these elections, there were 127 Representative Council seats available. Independent groups obtained a total of 79 seats, maintaining their position as the largest group. Compared to the previous elections, political groups gained nine seats, getting a total of 48 seats. This continues the trend from previous years where politically aligned groups increase their number of seats in Representative Councils.

Additional information:

Roope Tukia
Secretary general, SYL
+358451354314
roope.tukia@syl.fi