Yesterday, Finland suffered one of the worst election outcomes that any country can hope for. The biggest winner of Finnish elections was The True Finns -party, an extreme right wing, anti-EU, border-closing, xenophobic and strongly religious party that became from one of the small side-notion parties into the third biggest party overnight.
But simultaneously, it was a reminder: no more can we expect politics to happen just by placing the votes and hoping for the best. The years of stability are over, and we’ve got too used to the fact that whatever happens, there’s nothing dramatic happening in the way the new parliament is formed. Well, now it is. Goose-stepping (well, maybe “goose-wobbling” is a more accurate term in these circumstances) into the Parliament are waves of unexperienced, loud-mouthed right-wingers who will have their hands full trying to make Finland into a more closed, nationalistic and narrow-minded country.
This means we need to activate, help our parties, candidates and MPs to fight against this regression. Especially now it is not time to leave the country. Also, to every candidate who didn’t get elected, now it is not time to quit. The next four years are going to be harsh, but the next elections are coming, and more than ever, we need the people to activate politically, to work their asses off to get their candidates to the parliament, and make room for reasonable politics again. Go out and find what you can do for your party, candidates or MPs, support them any way you can – whether it is by officially becoming a member of the party, supporting your candidate’s efforts to get elected in the municipal elections, support them financially, and eventually building up a good counter-response for next parliament elections.
Remember, this is not the end of the world. For the next years we may feel like we’re watching an extreme slow-motion train wreck taking place in the Finnish parliament, but there’s going to be new elections in just few years, and then it’s time to clean up the mess that’s been made, and start re-building.
We need be aware of what’s going on in the politics. We all know it’s a dead-boring issue, but not following what’s happening is great grounds for the extremist takeovers. The right wing has always gained more popularity during the financially harsh times, and each country in EU is facing hard times explaining the citizens why helping out a country you’ve once visited in for a holiday is actually necessary for better tomorrow. Fueling its rocket from this unclarity, and pumping some more gas from problematic immigration issues like the Romanian beggars and refugee family unification, the party is set to go, and get all of those who’ve never understood a word of international politics to get activated and to vote. And when you have a trustingly smiling True Finn leader who everyone can identify with, we have a scary movement with enough fuel to go this far.
The only positive thing about Finnish elections were that Wille Rydman didn’t get to the Parliament, although he did get way too close. I’m also happy in a bittersweet way to see that the Pirates were left on shore to develope their party (or maybe to form a new one, excluding the racist-chauvinists, silver surfers and candidates who think that comics about ass-raping are a good way to promote adult discussion over information society), because the issues they are pushing forward are way too important to be handled by random bunch trolls.
I’ve thought about an Internet service I call “Follow Your Representative”. It would be a social media news source moderated by independent entities, feeding the news and the official parliament records on the doings of the elected parliament members, and reminding of the election promises they were promoting to get elected. In the service, the audience can easily follow what their candidate has actually been doing during his or her’s service, vote how well they’ve kept to their promises, follow on how many parliament sessions they’ve attended, what they’ve voted Yay or Nay for, and discuss and possibly even directly communicate with the MP. I’m not one to do this service, but I’m hoping someone would – so that in four years time, we’d have a good database of what the elected parliament members have been doing during their term, and if they are worth a re-vote.
One thing which tells me that things are not progressing the right direction is that for the first time in my blogging life, I’m just a little bit afraid to push “send”, after writing an article that’s criticizing the right wing national movement in Finland. These guys now have the power, and we’ve seen where that leads.
Let’s make sure it doesn’t get further than this.
