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.
There already is a very well made Internet Service like that you are talking about, Kansan Muisti -> http://www.kansanmuisti.fi/
The situation in Finland is a natural culmination of the common trend established in other European countries which is the spread of nationalistic and radical ideas. Just look at the recent popularity surveys in France where Le Pen’s party has achieved more than 20 % of all votes. It seems that this kind of propaganda can really help some politicians improve their standing among their voters.
I’m not sure whether I’d be willing to place True Finns on any specific place on the left/right political axis. For one, there’s incredible discrepancy within the party itself. The core party consists of the anti-EU wing and the xenophobic wing, then there’s a number of hang-around members. The party hardly has an unanimous view on many important topics. A large number of their representatives are quite leftist and some on the right in their economic views. Their values are ultra-conservative and while this is generally strongly connected with right-wing politics, their economy policies are pretty leftist.
Personally I’d call them an ultra-conservative party. I’m myself a right-wing liberal (in the Finnish political environment at least), and I don’t really have any common grounds with them.
I however am pretty confident that their victory will not be long-lasting. The party will face serious external and internal conflicts during the next four years. I do know for sure that during the next elections (beginning with presidential ones in 2012), I’m going to devote all the spare time I have into campaigning so that they can not continue this direction.
A Finland with this many “True Finns” is not a Finland I want to be a part of for long.
Apart from True Finns not being far-right, border-closing (that would be vapauspuolue), nor religious (thats christian democrats), you can find real anti-EU parties (ipu, stp, skp,ktp), your description is quite on the mark apart that the only phobia in Finland is verafennophobia.
Anyone who believes the kind of asininity you just wrote should actually do what many have threatened and move from the country, the IQ levels in both nations would significantly rise.
Correct word for True Finns political agenda is reactionary. And there is only so much that Finnish parliament can do nowadays, so next time vote for federalist party to EU parliament just to annoy them.
As of historical basis if they get some real power that their predecessor collapsed after one run in power. And for some reason the same guys are in this party too.
Lemmy Caution:
Before being that snooty, I have to ask – are you one of those True Finns who hasn’t actually read the party’s election manifesto?
Section 1.2, the first sentence: “True Finns is a nationalistic Christian-sosialistic party”
Section 7.1, the first sentence: “True Finns is critical about EU…”. The second sentence: “On the other hand, True Finns is also an anti-EU party”.
You can apologize whenever you are ready.
JH: *Ouch*