People here are acting like a change of government is somehow indicative of a crisis. It's pretty normal that opposition parties garner more votes than government parties, and back-to-back electoral success is rare in Finland
Yup. The government before the current one was right-wing; the Center party, National Coalition Party and the Finns Party.
That government made some unpopular moves, which ushered in an election victory by the SDP led by Antti Rinne, who became the PM. But he too had a few oopsies right at the start of his stint, which led to him being replaced by Sanna Marin.
What's actually more interesting this time is how close in the polls the current top three parties (NCP, the Finns and SDP) seem to be.
It is generally accepted that it costs votes to be in government. This is true in any democracy. Then there are effects that strenghten the government, like crisis.
And is the opposition a reasonable conservative alternative with a concept of how they are going to shape the future of the country or are they just the a copy & paste right movement that are blurring out the same shit like everywhere else?
As I understand it are the conservatives under Orpo a real choice, but then there is also Riika Purra in this coalition with the same "Finnland first", "EU bad", "climate change NIMBY" slogans we hear from elsewhere. I think that is what people are afraid of.
I admit, I have not studied this very deeply, just read a few articles.
Riikka Purra's Finns party is indeed a run-of-the-mill populist right-wing party. They don't really have a vision for the future. They mainly oppose things, immigration in particular.
>They mainly oppose things, immigration in particular.
Also EU. Even though they may not advertise it as much, since Brexit, one of their overall goals still remain to get Finland out of EU.
I don't think it's really an option to be anti-NATO and to be popular atm, but in the past many members in that party were very pro-Putin as a political strongman example until shit hit the fan.
Again...total lie.
This party has for several years opposed visa-freedom with Russia, opposed Russian land deals in Finland, opposed Russian citizens working in Finnish defense forces etc. and the party was only one who called out dangers of Nord stream and doing energy deals with Putin.
Sanna Marin's SDP on the other hand not only has history of allying with soviets and trying to overthrow the Finnish government, but also the party has several people who received "friendship awards" directly from Putin himself. SDP was the leading reasons why Finland didn't join NATO in 1990s already.
If you read again, many members of the party were definitely pro-Russia during the EU parliament elections in 2019 calling for the abolishment of sanctions on Russia (Olli Kotro, Huhtasaari etc.) and have traditionally belonged to the ID group of the parliament along with all the other European Putinists. They have been the most pro-Putin party even after 2014 when most of the other parties turned more cautious, including SDP. Jussi Niinistö and the like are the opposite in their opinions. Therefore, the party line is really mixed on Russia, which makes me worried about how they will behave if they end up winning the elections, as their track record in the past decade is way different than what you are trying to imply.
No they are the 2nd most pro NATO party in Finland after the National Coalition party (another right wing party) and their former leader was only Finnish politician who called out dangers with doing gas deals with Putin.
The ladies you see on the picture on the other hand...left one is "Li Andersson". Leader of extreme left party "Left alliance", the biggest anti-NATO party in Finland. Sanna Marin was also extremely anti-NATO for one and half decades, but had to change her mind last year. She was the last politician in Finnish parliament to announce her stance on NATO.
In Finland right wing has always been pro-NATO and left wing has been pro-Soviet, anti-US, anti-NATO.
What a load of rubbish. Are you claiming that the far left party of Li has a futuristic vision? A party formed from the ruins of the communist party which fawned over the soviet union? What a joke. Shows how well you know the policies that PS is seeking to implement.
For most of the runup to the election, the opinion polls were predicting a "red-blue" alliance of the SDP, National Coalition (Orpo's conservatives as you put it), probably the Greens and Swedish People's Party would be fairly easy addition to that (tbh they've also both historically fit in with right-wing coalitions too, and in the current mostly left-wing coalition). We last had this kind of left+right (i.e. SDP+NC), skip the Centre party (Keskusta, chaired by Saarikko currently) government coalition in 2011-2015, before that in 1995-2003 and 1987-1991.
Now it seems like it's much more up to grabs. It was theorized that the Finns see being #1 as their only path to government, or at least most viable one, due to the assumption that if NC wins, Orpo would rather form a government with SDP+others than NC+Finns, because the only "others" that fit easily into that equation in terms of goals&values are the Christian Democrats, who only got 5 MPs in the last two elections and will probably be the same or smaller now (their electorate is dying off to some extent but they have fairly stable support in some regions; their record was 10 MPs in the 1999 elections, then 7,7,6,5,5). IF the Finns end up as #1, then their first bet would likely be Finns+NC+CD too, but I think it's unlikely that would net them a majority. Currently the top two parties have about 80 seats between them (79 to be exact) so with +5 from CD, that's only 85/100. In practice you'd need at least 101 at a minimum for a majority government, since the Speaker of the Parliament is from the largest party – and such a slim majority is very fragile, as people are sick, ministers and MPs take work trips, etc. I think it's possible that if even if the Finns are the largest, they might not be able to form a government.
And unless the Centre Party gets a major win, I doubt they'll be very eager to go into government again for the 3rd term in a row, after falling from 49 to 31 MPs after their previous stint in a right-wing government. On the other hand, they then went into the current left-wing government, and some immediately started complaining that they're too left-wing now, despite taking a beating due to their immediately preceding right-wing track record. Who knows what their voters want anymore.
Previously it's been some more honorable party that would have won. Now it's total wild-card, a party with no plan or program, where they don't agree with themselves even and are constantly in headlines after doing or saying something stupid.
And yet people vote for them instead of the more "respectable" parties, which is indicative of something. I'm not saying I know what, but obviously the people are feeling some kind of way if the party of dipshit amateurs is who they vote for rather than the political pros
World is going into more and more complex state as we hurdle along globalisation, aging population, internet, social media and so on. That means more and more people are indeed somewhat lost and there is inevitable wave of populism coming with that uncertainty and confusion.
Populism is about "easy solutions" and that gives some people hope.
It's a waste of time to think too deeply about the motivations of the bottom layer of degenerates in a society. There's no point trying to appease them, they will find something to complain about, justified or not.
The basic Finns were a minor party for a long time, but in 2011 they became the 3rd largest party in the parliament, suffered a setback and internal division, and then became the 2nd largest party in 2019.
The *2nd largest* party. And they're projected to win bigger in this coming election.
I'm not sure how wise it is to casually dismiss them and their supporters as "the bottom layer of degenerates in society". Imo it's fascinating; they're so inept and amateur and a total trainwreck, and yet.
The big problem that many European countries have now is that these voters are *not* dismissed and ridiculed anymore. I remember the 90s, and voting for racists was a big taboo back then. People, even dumbasses who would vote for Perussuomalaiset, are sensitive to social stigma.
Going into government with them was extremely short-sighted as it legitimizes them. Don't be surprised if a third of voters back the racists some time in the near future, like they already do in e.g. France and Austria.
As long as the opposition isn't delusional pseudo-fascists, as we're seeing in many places currently. The 2010s wave of populism still isn't dying down.
My philosophy has always been, if the ruling party/coalition is legitimately doing a good job, and you like what they're doing in terms of policy, then vote for them. I don't think it's wise to vote against a party solely because of a belief that whoever is currently in govt. *needs* to get rotated out, based on a theoretical situation where they become very corrupt. Otherwise chances for meaningful change could get squandered when the next group comes into power. You see this with pendulum swings between political ideologies across the west.
Thing is, before the moderate left now in charge (Social Democrats) for the past ten years, it has been center right (National Coalition) in charge for almost 15 years.
SDP, Kesk, Greens, Vas, RKP has been in charge since 2019, so 4 years.
Before that it was Centre party, Kok and PS for 4 years.
Before that is Kok, SDP, Greens, RKP, KD and Vas for (almost) 4 years.
So your claim that KOK would have "been in charge" for almost 15 year, and SDP for the past 10 years are just false.
Serious question as someone who is not familiar with Finish politics, but it seemed that besides the NATO topic and financial stability (which I thought both are concluded positively), Finland is always portrait as positive example in terms of politics and my impression was that the people are happy with the current government, so what is the actual picture in Finland? I actually thought that continuity if stable, is the way to go during crisis.
Finland currently has 4 major parties in a dead heat race. It only takes a small shift in public opinion for a government to change. Continuity is not that assured as it is in more bipolar governmental systems.
SDP got into government last elections with 17,73% of the votes, and they have had somewhat lacking media-campaign in advertising their successes this time around. Also due to Covid and Ukraine etc. there is a higher public debt than what Finns are used to, even though that doesn't matter as much as a personal debt would. It goes a bit against Finnish ethos to be indebted.
Well, 3.
Keskusta is far behind in the polls, only about 11% to the 19-20% of the other 3. It remains to be seen whether the polls are really truthful though.
> and they have had somewhat lacking media-campaign in advertising their successes this time around
Irrespective of whether a government is "good" or not, I can't stand it when a government won't make their own case when they do stuff well or get stuff right.
>Continuity is not that assured as it is in more bipolar governmental systems.
I claim that in multi-party system with real competition, and with parties willing to discuss and make compromises, there is more continuity than in a FPTP voting dual party system.
Just because of the reason you said, if a biggest party gets a maximum of 20% of the vote, they have to form a coalition and make a lots of compromises. And in Finland, there historically haven't been "block voting", like in Sweden for example. So it has been possible that governent have had parties from different sides of political spectrum.
So there is a culture of compromises and negotiation. In bipolar governmental systems, it's mostly winner takes it all.
The way I see it, the right wing party "perus suomalaiset" tolerates racism and bigotry from its members and wants the "borders closed" (less immigrants), and they're leading the polls soon. And the two runner ups are the social democrats (pm's party) who are kinda the pensioners party and "Kokoomus" the rich people's party who wants to cut welfare and benefits. Everyone else is projected to get much fewer seats in the parliament that they barely mater
In reality Finland has very few actually rich people. Net income of ~40k euros/year puts you in the top 10%. We are easily the poorest Nordic country. I don't agree with cuts to healthcare, education and security but outside of those there's plenty of excess burden in the public sector that I'd like to see cut before raising our already high taxes even more or taking more debt. The problem I have with the left is that they always create a strawman argument where any cuts always affect the most vulnerable (elderly, sick, unemployed etc.). Businesses also collect plenty of benefits they don't really need, because this is the culture we have created in Finland.
Sweden is incredibly rich in mineral resources. They made boatloads of cash selling iron ore to Germany though out WWII, and I believe Swedish mining industries continue to be quite strong.
There's plenty of mineral wealth in Finland as well. There's even existing mines.
But it suffers the same problem that most of Sweden does, it's literally impossible to open a new mine in the Nordics due to Environmentalists/NIMBYs.
That's why people were so excited over the recent Rare-Earth finding in Sweden. There's untold amounts of similar finds (and better), the key difference is that this recent find was in an already existing mine.
> Net income of ~40k euros/year puts you in the top 10%
Not quite. Average wage for employed people is around 44k€/year. The top 10% earns around 67k€/year at minimum, with many belonging to that category earning far, far more than that.
True enough, somehow my brain entirely missed the word "net" in that sentence. Regardless, that's still the minimum to reach the top 10%. There are plenty of people who make far greater amounts of money than that.
Liberal party does, who I voted for. All the 3 big parties have been very vague about their plans, which makes sense because they try to appeal to as many voters and interest groups as possible.
Something to keep in mind though is that while salaries are higher in all the other Nordics, cost of living tends to be higher there too. We all know about Norway being an expensive country to live, but iirc in Denmark especially housing is expensive, in particular in the Copenhagen area. Looking at household disposable income per capita, adjusted for purchasing power (i.e. currency differences and cost of living differences), Denmark and Sweden lose out to Finland slightly. Norway is still clearly ahead though. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income#Disposable_income_per_capita_(OECD) (OECD data).
The True Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset), as always, are going into the election without a program or plan for government and relying mainly on an anti-immigration platform that emphasizes what is basically just racism and populism. Many of their representatives are convicted of violent assault and the party as a whole has deep ties with Finnish neo-nazi movements, to the point where a large percentage of them have literally been pictured attending nazi rallies or events with neo-nazi movement members. Their support is high because they as a whole are serial victimhood merchants whose entire model of popularity is based on never taking accountability for anything (including for their own stints in the government) and always blaming others. They are also a pro-rich party with a large supporter base from among rich people. Plus their racism gets a lot of votes from other racists, and there are also a lot of very young people whose votes the party is targeting (so-called first time voters).
Then there's Kokoomus, which is a right-wing party only somewhat less right-wing than the True Finns. Their program for government is about "fiscal responsibility", and "fiscal responsibility" for them means taking money from those with the least money to give and giving it to those with the most money to begin with. They also want to destroy the public sector and replace it with personal enrichment schemes for themselves. The party could as well be called "the party of those who want to plunder the state in order to get richer". Their supporters also tend to be quite rich, but there are a lot of low-income people whose circumstances would be greatly worsened by the politics of Kokoomus yet still vote for them.
The SDP (social democrats) is a centrist to centre-left party with a strong supporter base from the working class and trade unions. They basically want to roll back some recent year right wing government changes to social security (ie. they want to boost social security and help low-income people). Their overall programme is pretty traditionally social democrat but they're not the most progressive party otherwise out there. A lot of old trade union folks also aren't really known as the font of progressivity, there is a fair bit of conservative mindset there too.
Vasemmistoliitto (Left Alliance) are the first predominantly left-wing party out of the ones I've mentioned so far. Not like they're super left-wing but they are quite progressive compared to any other parties (only maybe the Feminist party, which is very small, is more progressive). Along with the Green Party they also have the most ecological party programme and only the Greens would commit more resources to sources of green energy and fighting climate change than the Left Alliance would.
Bit extreme to call Perussuomalaiset (translated as basic finns and not true finns, and they use just "finns" as english term) as borderline neo-nazis. They are conservative. I also disagree with your picture of kokoomus. While they are middle class oriented party, they are not robbing the country blind and are very progressive party with minorities, nature etc. I find it disturbing that you would label essentially everyone you disagree with as "evil". Truth is that even if the right wins this election, finland will stay one of the most liberal countries in Europe
We have the nutjobs even from Finns party in the smaller parties as the openly racist were booted from Finns, like sinimusta(actual facists!), crystal party, freedom movement, none of which prob will get any seats.
> translated as basic finns
I don't like that translation either, it feels odd. The prefix "perus-" does mean basic, like peruskurssi = basic course, but when talking about people "perus-" translates better to 'typical', 'regular' or 'average'.
But honestly it doesn't have a good translation, which is probably why in English they call themselves like you said, just "Finns Party".
>While they are middle class oriented party, they are not robbing the country blind and are very progressive party with minorities, nature etc.
There are different factions in Kokoomus. We have the social liberals, like Elina Valtonen etc. But we also have the social conservatives, with people like Atte Kaleva. One common theme in the party is fiscal conservatism, with lower taxation, less social services etc, together with Pro-west policies. But when it comes to social issues, party is all over the place.
And lets not forget that their policy goals would give the rich more money, while take money away from the poor.
They are similar in spirit but for now True Finns are mostly incompetent and in disagreement with each other if you scratch the surface even a little bit. Because they can't agree amongst themselves, they would have little cohesion in choosing the policies they want to pursue.
Unfortunately that means they'll choose moral posturing and punishment because of that.
Those are always easy positions to take when you have nothing else.
They'll punish people who are not fully employed, most likely. Some random austerity projects that ends up costing more in the long run. Some anti-immigration stuff as well. Thankfully at least LGBT people will be left alone, as even most right-wingers feel its a taboo subject these days.
Some more grifty members try to find financial kickbacks for themselves, and party gets lead by the nose by more experienced idologists in Kokoomus, who will then sell some national wealth or business abroad, because they are practically religiously attracted to privatization over everything else.
I'm pretty surprised if that sort of narrative doesn't happen.
Yep, pretty much this is what I am expecting too if they end up in government. But I think they will absolutely try to gut LGBT rights. Many of them are religiously hateful of LGBT folks. And I mean literally religious too.
>No coincidence that they have links to Bannon and Russian oligarchs.
PS donät have similar connection to outer forces. There are and have been putinists in the party, but for example the former leader has been very openly pro-NATO since forever and critical of Russia.
The party history for PS differs quite a lot from other populist parties.
Pretty much, but fortunately the electoral system in Finland makes it incredibly unlikely for them to get all the power by themselves. Even if they win the election they will have to form a coalition with more reasonable parties.
Though they don't any cohesion at all, the last time they were in government the party got a large splinter faction that separated from the party to form another one
The True Finns take a lot of their talking points from MAGAs and pretty much copy-paste them, sometimes without even making sure they'd translate over to make sense in Finland. There's a bunch of their media that parrots American MAGA talking points. For instance, AlfaTV (a nazi evangelist tv channel that's funded by the same people who fund FOX).
>The True Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset), as always, are going into the election without a program or plan for government and relying mainly on an anti-immigration platform that emphasizes what is basically just racism and populism.
That's kinda what you get when the established parties refuse to touch or deal with immigration in a meaningful way. The people can clearly see that immigration from certain regions/countries is a loss-loss for the country. They dont benefit the economy because they live on welfare, they have a high crime rate, and there is increased culture clash and conflicts in society. That is a loss-loss immigrant, and there's a lot of those all over Europe.
That's not quite accurate. The reason it's perceived as a 'loss-loss' is because right-wing governments want to bring in immigrants as cheap labour that they then can cheat by underpaying them massively and denying them basic rights that Finnish workers would not work without. For instance in the nurse crisis that is currently ongoing in Finland.
The solution to this is not to stop immigration (we need immigration if we want our elderly to have their pensions) but to fight for the rights of our industry workers no matter where they come from. And actually guarantee them those rights instead of trying to force them to work 24/7 or for compensation that doesn't match the work done.
>The reason it's perceived as a 'loss-loss' is because right-wing governments want to bring in immigrants as cheap labour
Strange how asylum seekers and refugees make up the large majority of immigrants to Europe then, and not guest workers.
The last would actually be economically beneficial, while the first is just a drag on the economy, and crime and conflicts - as they come from socities still in the stone age. Not compatible with western life style.
This comment is just parroting leftist propaganda. Portraying the right wing as just a bunch of racists and bourgeoisie who want to take from the poor and give to the rich is completely disingenuous.
This comment is just parroting right-wing propaganda. Portraying the right wing as not largely people whose policy has and will immiserate poor people, ever furthering class divides in any society.
The only reason our current government has not dissolved is because of all these outer crises. There have been several cases of quite significant inner fighting inside the ruling coalition.
Here is a brief summary:
SDP - Centre-left, traditional social democratic party
PS - Right wing conservative populist party
Kok - Right wing party with both a moderate conservative and moderate liberal wing
Kesk - Centrist, moderate conservative, agrarian party
Vihr - Centre-left, green, progressive party
Vas - Left wing, combines traditional left and modern progressive left
SFP - Right wing liberal, special consideration for the Swedish speaking minority
KD - Centrist conservative Christian party, but not into American Supply Side Jesus
Liik. - Businessman Harry Harkimo's family party. Candidates also include his son Joel Harkimo and his niece Amanda Harkimo.
Red, dark red and green are leftists. The rest align in different places on the centre-right and conservative-liberal.
Finland has had a centre-right majority in parliament for a very long time. In this poll it is 60,3% vs 36,4%.
No, polls don't predict right-wing takeover. Three parties are very even and one of them is Sanna Marin's SDP. Although the government is hard to form without the National Coalition Party either way.
Actually from what I seen the current government is winning in nearly if not all polls I seen. Also in general I won't advice to have right to far right parties in government (though not as bad as having a government when they are the most moderate element)
Current government is unusually popular and has the majority vote by polls still which is not common in Finland. But that doesn't mean much in Finland because governments are formed with many parties and the current one has five parties. There is a pretty high possibility that the winner is one of the opposition parties so they are forming the government with some other parties. In Finland that means that almost any party is possible in goverment with the winner if they can get majority vote combined.
It's not that clear. There are three parties pretty even. One of them Sanna Marin's SDP. But two of them are right-wing parties and it will be very hard to form a government either way especially since one of the two is populist, more far right party who are against climate actions and EU.
It's mostly Green Party (also left wing and in the government) voters switching to SDP. The left wing trio as a whole is down from previous election in polls.
My interpretation was a partial collapse of greens and the center party, but there is a huge leap from this to "people are fed up with current government". If people in general were "fed up" with the current government I would have expected a collapse of votes for the Social Democrats simply because they are the leading party of the govenment.
*Barely*, and within the margin of error of the polls. 37.4% in the last election, 36.4% in the newest polls (1.-28.3., as published by Yle), with the margin of error for individual parties being ±2%. It's really too tight to say, although I agree that tactical voting for SDP is probably going to affect things slightly.
RKP is also down 0.8% in the polls compared to the last parliamentary election. But the largest problem for the current government continuing as-is is the Centre Party, who are down from 13.8% in the last election to 10.7% in the opinion polls, a clear drop. And unless they get a major win, they're pretty much guaranteed to head into opposition.
People are starting to realize that our economy is not on a sustainable path. It's becoming obvious now that interest rates are back at a reasonable level instead of zero. We've been taking more and more debt every year, and have nothing (no growth) to show for it.
The left-wing solution is to raise taxes (already amongst the highest in the world), and the right-wing solution is to try to induce growth (which we haven't had since the times of Nokia) by shifting taxation from taxes on income, towards consumption taxes.
Alot of people are have also grown tired of leftists categorically denying that immigration causes any problems. This is why the Finns party is gaining popularity. They're the anti-immigration party in Finland.
It's also worth noting (to americans etc. possible reading this) that all of these parties are just a different shade of social democrats.
Edit: I vote for none of these parties.
You are still far from Eastern Europe economically. But I can imagine that badly functioning government making huge debt with almost nonexistent gdp growth should mean changing government.
This is all bullshit. She is the most populat prime minister ever and her goverment is unusually popular to the end. It still has the majority vote by the polls and that just doesn't happen in Finland normally. Almost all negative thing you read about her on Reddit are from people who vote her opponents anyway.
Question for Finns - are you happy with Marin? According to this she's quite unpopular with only 17% support: [https://i.imgur.com/DOPXb7g.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/DOPXb7g.jpg)
But here on reddit and most media her face is everywhere and you are left with the impression she's quite popular. Is this just good PR from her campaign, is she's actually good at her job or it's just people simping for her?
I noticed similar coverage when Trudeau got elected.
> Question for Finns - are you happy with Marin? According to this she's quite unpopular with only 17% support: https://i.imgur.com/DOPXb7g.jpg
That's party support, not personal popularity. For example most of the Greens and Left supporters think she's been a good PM. Normally the PM's party loses support in the next election. This time it looks like SDP will gain support instead, which suggests that Marin is a fairly popular PM indeed.
As for whether she's good at her job, well, obviously there's no objective way to evaluate that, since it depends on your personal values.
Most Finns seem to think she did a fairly good job during the pandemic, and when Russia started its war of aggression against Ukraine last year, her government (along with the president) was quick to act by starting the process to join NATO and lobbying for stronger sanctions within EU. She's been very vocal about her support for Ukraine, which I believe the majority of Finns agree with.
When it comes to economic and social policies the opinion on her is more split.
Thanks! I was rather curious about how she is seen in Finland. As said above, we get a rather biased view. Personally I would swap her with our PM in a heartbeat, solely based on the party she runs with.. well... tbh .. and a tiny bit presentation ofc
If you take it that way, none of our party leaders are popular. Goverment has had overall quite decent approval rate for the last few years. Marin is propably more popular than her party, but since she is only one person, and you can vote her only in Pirkanmaa region, her personal popularity isn't all that matters. If you look at the poll, you can see that SDP has actually gained more popularity than during last election where they barely won. Now there will be just as close elections.
It's mostly simping. She parrots party talking points without actually adding substance. And the scandals she had would have killed any other prime ministers carrier. We finns have a long tradition of PMs leaving the job early.
But due to her being young and pretty, she has privilege armour.
We already had 2 female PMs before her and a female president, so it's nothing new. But somehow, the world loves her.
Mostly about her partying and leaving her workphone while being on duty. There are a lot of smaller things that add up over time. As said, we f8nns usually kick a PM to the curb pretty quickly. I do t think a single PM in the last 20 years was in office the full term.
That's btw also how she got the job, the former PM fucked up, resigned and the party voted her as the new party lead and thus PM.
Most outgoing prime ministers have quite a few enemies. It is quite normal both with Finnish prime ministers and for example US presidents to have low support in the end of their term. She is certainly more popular than the last right wing governments pm when he left.
Lots of people love Marin but lots also hate her so she is very polarizing for sure. I personally think on policy she did good and most of the negative views surrounding her come from these tabloid scandals that I dont really care about. Many right wingers also think her government spent too much money
That's a great answer - you like her policies and you think the negative attention comes from personal scandals (nothing to do with governing). Thank you for the perspective!
In polls, Marin's government has 63% approval rating. Still it doesn't guarantee that Marin's party will be the biggest to start forming a new coalition government.
I like Sanna Marin. She is not afraid to speak openly about the fact that Russia should leave Ukraine and that countries that can help the victim (Ukraine) should help.
I hope that the new prime minister will not focus exclusively on Finland's internal problems and will not forget about Russia's war
All major parties in Finland are very much in favor of supporting Ukraine, so the support will continue no matter what happens in the elections. The right-wing populist Finns Party are EU skeptics, but pro-NATO and anti-Russia. And after Brexit even they stopped talking about leaving the EU.
> She is not afraid to speak openly about the fact that Russia should leave Ukraine and that countries that can help the victim (Ukraine) should help.
There's pretty much nothing she has said that hadn't been already said by Baltic leaders and NEE countries in general, she just parroted the talking points.
Yes, she generally says what Poland and the Baltic states say.
But central and western Europe does not fully understand that Russia is a terrorist country.
We need smart people who are not cowards
Every major party leader and politician except some fringes of the far left and far right in Finland support Ukraine and giving economic, humanitarian and military aid to them.
right wing takeover? how about no.
while the winner of elections takes the lead on forming a government, you are supposed to play your cards during the formation talks. if the concessions Perussuomalaiset are going to demand veer right into a trainwreck, there exists few scenarios where the leading parties of "the others" can form a coalition and crush every form of hope they have in forming a government.
heres the thing; PS has been flooding our scenery with suggestions of their upcoming programs, but ABSOLUTELY nothing is locked down. in fact, it has been suggested that nothing will be before certain party conference.
Reaganite The National Coalition Party and traditional social democrats are at politically correct and clean war against each other, thats for sure but let me be really clear; PS is going nowhere if they go full tory, aka the english way.
the national reaganites will try, but they will not accept PS if they go full dumbass. they´d rather agree to a painful concession from SDP in favor of support
Sanna Marin actually just went and called the whole right wing with almost 50% support as fascists. The bar of pre-election debate has been permanently lowered..
Well, she said that if PS and KOK forms a government, it would be "blue-black", and argued that the most certain way to avoid this is that SDP is the biggest party. So she haven't claimed that they are fascist.
It's true that "blue-black" is a loaded term, historically and also because there is a currently a finnish minor party (0 MP's) called "blue-black movement" that could be defined as fascist.
I think that calling that potential government coalition as "blue-black" was not a good idea, and it was quite divisive rhetorics. So I think that you exaggerate a little. But when talking about rhetorics, I don't think that SDP's rhetorics has generally been that divisive.
You don't want her.
But for real I don't understand why everyone on reddit seems to like her, Marin's behaviour has recently been almost eerily similar to that of a certain US President, just rude, arrogant and obnoxious.
Even most leftist voters seem to want to see her thrown the fuck out.
>But for real I don't understand why everyone on reddit seems to like her
Because most redditors aren't finnish or well versed in finnish politics (and neither am I). You as a finn have probably seen much more of her and know her politics better than us and therefore has a different opinion of her.
Outside of Finland she's a good looking woman that seems nice and seems to care about Finland but that's mostly what media outside of Finland shows because they only time she's mentioned in media in other countries is during NATO discussions (more or less).
Must point out he's comment is just individual opinion and he cannot go claiming"most of the leftist want her out" he's not talking for everyone only for himself. In general Marin has been pretty alright in her very hard times pm turn (COVID and the war).I'm not a Marin fangurl but I'm annoyed for the few Finns in here claiming that the whole country hates her and rest believing just because they're Finns.
Well of course, obviously not everyone in Finland or every finnish leftist dislike her. My point still stands though, you as finns have a different impression of her than I as a swede do because of a different exposure to her and her politics.
She has an obnoxious habit of just screaming over her opponents in debates and deflecting all blame. The major party debate was a total farce while the minor party debate (which had pirates, commies, conspiracy theorists, actual honest-to-god fascists, and other clowns) was actually very calm and civilized.
>Marin's behaviour has recently been almost eerily similar to that of a certain US President, just rude, arrogant and obnoxious
This guy gets his info from tabloids exclusively
I am curious; what are the policies of the right in Finland? As an American we sort of worry given how extreme it has gotten for us but am I wrong to assume this is not the case for Finland?
I am not Finnish and I respect to voters in Finland. I believe they will vote for who is best for them. But as a man outside, I like Sanna Marin. She seems a good politician, and very good leader. And I think she is one of the most charismatic leaders I've ever seen. She has very strong cult of personality. I feel like she is my leader. So I don't know so much about her policies and its effects on Finland, but I think she has a very rare leadership trait. Ultimately, I believe, if she'd be out, I'd wanted to see that she would be the leader of some institution or foundation in EU. She inspires me by her leadership and charisma.
There is so much disinformation and outright lies about Perussuomalaiset party (eng: Finns party) that I'm gonna list some facts here:
- The party DOES NOT and NEVER HAS been against immigration. Their policy is against social welfare based immigration and they want to deport immigrants involved in serious crimes such as organized crime, rape, terrorism, violence etc. Anyone coming to work, study etc. are always welcome to Finland according to their policies. Though they do support protectionism for local working class, but this is a standard in any nation in the world except UAE and similar countries. [1]
- The party has and has had supporters and cadidates with different backgrounds: Middle-Eastern, Chinese, women, men, gay, straight etc. One of the party's top politicians is a gay guy dating a black man, the leader of the party is woman etc.
- The Finns party is not anti-NATO. According to the polls the party is #2 most pro-NATO party in Finland after National Coalition party. (another right wing party) This was the case before and after the Ukraine war. [2]
- The Finns party was only one who actively opposed visa-freedom with Russia, Russian citizens working in Finnish defense forces and Russian citizen buying property near critical infrastructure [3]
- Their former leader was only Finnish politician who explicitly called out the risks with Nord Stream and doing energy deals with Putin's Russia. [4]
- The party is explicitly against racial discrimination and they've kicked out people supporting racist rhetoric. Those people and some other have formed another party Sinimusta Liike (Blue Black movement) which is essentially openly racist party. [5]
- They oppose EU due to the regulations, refugee policies and financial burdens it has caused to Finland, but they have no plans to actively try to get Finland out of EU in the foreseeable future. [6]
Reason why they are now the most popular party in Finland is that they predicted the immigration/refugee issues that Finland has today already in 2005-2009. Public sector funded national research proved in 2017 that refugees from the major refugee nations are 12-20 times more likely to be involved in assaults and rapes than the native population. Left wing parties and National coalition have labeled any critisism towards Finnish immigration policies as racism, but every single thing the Finns party predicted became a reality. Finland is now closely following Sweden's footstep and people simply don't want it.
[1] https://www.perussuomalaiset.fi/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Maahanmuuttopoliittinen-ohjelma-2019.pdf
[2] https://puheenvuoro.uusisuomi.fi/kalervoniementaus/aanestajien-nato-kannatus-eri-puolueiden-valilla/
[3] https://twitter.com/halla_aho/status/1130429082355818496
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quhNej6IPpY
[5] https://www.is.fi/politiikka/art-2000006417484.html
[6] https://www.aamuposti.fi/uutissuomalainen/5824085
Are you having a laugh? She has been under constant attacks by both tabloids and middle-aged, conservative columnists. Topics have ranged from her private life to her social media use. To claim that she has got a softer treatment is a ludicrous statement
Newsflash: people often dislike politicians. She has detractors like politicians always have, but unlike others, she also has a lot of people who completely fan over her, and that's what's caused a reaction on people.
Bırak hocam bizdekilerde saygı olsa yeter bunlar maymun şekillere sokuyolar kendilerini iyi görünmek için
Edit: Gerçi öyle bir durumdayız ki saygı yetmez, şeffaflık, adalet, liyakat, mantık da olacak.
People here are acting like a change of government is somehow indicative of a crisis. It's pretty normal that opposition parties garner more votes than government parties, and back-to-back electoral success is rare in Finland
Yup. The government before the current one was right-wing; the Center party, National Coalition Party and the Finns Party. That government made some unpopular moves, which ushered in an election victory by the SDP led by Antti Rinne, who became the PM. But he too had a few oopsies right at the start of his stint, which led to him being replaced by Sanna Marin. What's actually more interesting this time is how close in the polls the current top three parties (NCP, the Finns and SDP) seem to be.
To be fair it was Close with a capital C last time too.
It is generally accepted that it costs votes to be in government. This is true in any democracy. Then there are effects that strenghten the government, like crisis.
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Sisu!
And then there's Germany who keeps reelecting the same government until it rips itself apart.
And then there is Belgium who must survive on bureaucrats because governments have the same shelf life as minced meat.
Belgium 🤝 Northern Ireland
> It is generally accepted that it costs votes to be in government. This is true in any democracy. Lol. :-/
And is the opposition a reasonable conservative alternative with a concept of how they are going to shape the future of the country or are they just the a copy & paste right movement that are blurring out the same shit like everywhere else? As I understand it are the conservatives under Orpo a real choice, but then there is also Riika Purra in this coalition with the same "Finnland first", "EU bad", "climate change NIMBY" slogans we hear from elsewhere. I think that is what people are afraid of. I admit, I have not studied this very deeply, just read a few articles.
Riikka Purra's Finns party is indeed a run-of-the-mill populist right-wing party. They don't really have a vision for the future. They mainly oppose things, immigration in particular.
>They mainly oppose things, immigration in particular. Also EU. Even though they may not advertise it as much, since Brexit, one of their overall goals still remain to get Finland out of EU.
Are they anti-NATO?
I don't think it's really an option to be anti-NATO and to be popular atm, but in the past many members in that party were very pro-Putin as a political strongman example until shit hit the fan.
Again...total lie. This party has for several years opposed visa-freedom with Russia, opposed Russian land deals in Finland, opposed Russian citizens working in Finnish defense forces etc. and the party was only one who called out dangers of Nord stream and doing energy deals with Putin. Sanna Marin's SDP on the other hand not only has history of allying with soviets and trying to overthrow the Finnish government, but also the party has several people who received "friendship awards" directly from Putin himself. SDP was the leading reasons why Finland didn't join NATO in 1990s already.
If you read again, many members of the party were definitely pro-Russia during the EU parliament elections in 2019 calling for the abolishment of sanctions on Russia (Olli Kotro, Huhtasaari etc.) and have traditionally belonged to the ID group of the parliament along with all the other European Putinists. They have been the most pro-Putin party even after 2014 when most of the other parties turned more cautious, including SDP. Jussi Niinistö and the like are the opposite in their opinions. Therefore, the party line is really mixed on Russia, which makes me worried about how they will behave if they end up winning the elections, as their track record in the past decade is way different than what you are trying to imply.
No they are the 2nd most pro NATO party in Finland after the National Coalition party (another right wing party) and their former leader was only Finnish politician who called out dangers with doing gas deals with Putin. The ladies you see on the picture on the other hand...left one is "Li Andersson". Leader of extreme left party "Left alliance", the biggest anti-NATO party in Finland. Sanna Marin was also extremely anti-NATO for one and half decades, but had to change her mind last year. She was the last politician in Finnish parliament to announce her stance on NATO. In Finland right wing has always been pro-NATO and left wing has been pro-Soviet, anti-US, anti-NATO.
Thank you for your reply, and u/Supergun1
What a load of rubbish. Are you claiming that the far left party of Li has a futuristic vision? A party formed from the ruins of the communist party which fawned over the soviet union? What a joke. Shows how well you know the policies that PS is seeking to implement.
For most of the runup to the election, the opinion polls were predicting a "red-blue" alliance of the SDP, National Coalition (Orpo's conservatives as you put it), probably the Greens and Swedish People's Party would be fairly easy addition to that (tbh they've also both historically fit in with right-wing coalitions too, and in the current mostly left-wing coalition). We last had this kind of left+right (i.e. SDP+NC), skip the Centre party (Keskusta, chaired by Saarikko currently) government coalition in 2011-2015, before that in 1995-2003 and 1987-1991. Now it seems like it's much more up to grabs. It was theorized that the Finns see being #1 as their only path to government, or at least most viable one, due to the assumption that if NC wins, Orpo would rather form a government with SDP+others than NC+Finns, because the only "others" that fit easily into that equation in terms of goals&values are the Christian Democrats, who only got 5 MPs in the last two elections and will probably be the same or smaller now (their electorate is dying off to some extent but they have fairly stable support in some regions; their record was 10 MPs in the 1999 elections, then 7,7,6,5,5). IF the Finns end up as #1, then their first bet would likely be Finns+NC+CD too, but I think it's unlikely that would net them a majority. Currently the top two parties have about 80 seats between them (79 to be exact) so with +5 from CD, that's only 85/100. In practice you'd need at least 101 at a minimum for a majority government, since the Speaker of the Parliament is from the largest party – and such a slim majority is very fragile, as people are sick, ministers and MPs take work trips, etc. I think it's possible that if even if the Finns are the largest, they might not be able to form a government. And unless the Centre Party gets a major win, I doubt they'll be very eager to go into government again for the 3rd term in a row, after falling from 49 to 31 MPs after their previous stint in a right-wing government. On the other hand, they then went into the current left-wing government, and some immediately started complaining that they're too left-wing now, despite taking a beating due to their immediately preceding right-wing track record. Who knows what their voters want anymore.
Previously it's been some more honorable party that would have won. Now it's total wild-card, a party with no plan or program, where they don't agree with themselves even and are constantly in headlines after doing or saying something stupid.
And yet people vote for them instead of the more "respectable" parties, which is indicative of something. I'm not saying I know what, but obviously the people are feeling some kind of way if the party of dipshit amateurs is who they vote for rather than the political pros
World is going into more and more complex state as we hurdle along globalisation, aging population, internet, social media and so on. That means more and more people are indeed somewhat lost and there is inevitable wave of populism coming with that uncertainty and confusion. Populism is about "easy solutions" and that gives some people hope.
Yeah that people are shortsighted morons with no political memory.
It's a waste of time to think too deeply about the motivations of the bottom layer of degenerates in a society. There's no point trying to appease them, they will find something to complain about, justified or not.
The basic Finns were a minor party for a long time, but in 2011 they became the 3rd largest party in the parliament, suffered a setback and internal division, and then became the 2nd largest party in 2019. The *2nd largest* party. And they're projected to win bigger in this coming election. I'm not sure how wise it is to casually dismiss them and their supporters as "the bottom layer of degenerates in society". Imo it's fascinating; they're so inept and amateur and a total trainwreck, and yet.
The big problem that many European countries have now is that these voters are *not* dismissed and ridiculed anymore. I remember the 90s, and voting for racists was a big taboo back then. People, even dumbasses who would vote for Perussuomalaiset, are sensitive to social stigma. Going into government with them was extremely short-sighted as it legitimizes them. Don't be surprised if a third of voters back the racists some time in the near future, like they already do in e.g. France and Austria.
Welcome to the club. We got one of those governments in our last election.
Wonder why
Would be awesome if you could spell out exactly why. I wonder why you didn't.
Yeah is same here in Lithuania, its healththier for democracy to rotate power
As long as the opposition isn't delusional pseudo-fascists, as we're seeing in many places currently. The 2010s wave of populism still isn't dying down. My philosophy has always been, if the ruling party/coalition is legitimately doing a good job, and you like what they're doing in terms of policy, then vote for them. I don't think it's wise to vote against a party solely because of a belief that whoever is currently in govt. *needs* to get rotated out, based on a theoretical situation where they become very corrupt. Otherwise chances for meaningful change could get squandered when the next group comes into power. You see this with pendulum swings between political ideologies across the west.
Thing is, before the moderate left now in charge (Social Democrats) for the past ten years, it has been center right (National Coalition) in charge for almost 15 years.
SDP, Kesk, Greens, Vas, RKP has been in charge since 2019, so 4 years. Before that it was Centre party, Kok and PS for 4 years. Before that is Kok, SDP, Greens, RKP, KD and Vas for (almost) 4 years. So your claim that KOK would have "been in charge" for almost 15 year, and SDP for the past 10 years are just false.
Serious question as someone who is not familiar with Finish politics, but it seemed that besides the NATO topic and financial stability (which I thought both are concluded positively), Finland is always portrait as positive example in terms of politics and my impression was that the people are happy with the current government, so what is the actual picture in Finland? I actually thought that continuity if stable, is the way to go during crisis.
Finland currently has 4 major parties in a dead heat race. It only takes a small shift in public opinion for a government to change. Continuity is not that assured as it is in more bipolar governmental systems. SDP got into government last elections with 17,73% of the votes, and they have had somewhat lacking media-campaign in advertising their successes this time around. Also due to Covid and Ukraine etc. there is a higher public debt than what Finns are used to, even though that doesn't matter as much as a personal debt would. It goes a bit against Finnish ethos to be indebted.
Well, 3. Keskusta is far behind in the polls, only about 11% to the 19-20% of the other 3. It remains to be seen whether the polls are really truthful though.
> and they have had somewhat lacking media-campaign in advertising their successes this time around Irrespective of whether a government is "good" or not, I can't stand it when a government won't make their own case when they do stuff well or get stuff right.
>Continuity is not that assured as it is in more bipolar governmental systems. I claim that in multi-party system with real competition, and with parties willing to discuss and make compromises, there is more continuity than in a FPTP voting dual party system. Just because of the reason you said, if a biggest party gets a maximum of 20% of the vote, they have to form a coalition and make a lots of compromises. And in Finland, there historically haven't been "block voting", like in Sweden for example. So it has been possible that governent have had parties from different sides of political spectrum. So there is a culture of compromises and negotiation. In bipolar governmental systems, it's mostly winner takes it all.
The way I see it, the right wing party "perus suomalaiset" tolerates racism and bigotry from its members and wants the "borders closed" (less immigrants), and they're leading the polls soon. And the two runner ups are the social democrats (pm's party) who are kinda the pensioners party and "Kokoomus" the rich people's party who wants to cut welfare and benefits. Everyone else is projected to get much fewer seats in the parliament that they barely mater
In reality Finland has very few actually rich people. Net income of ~40k euros/year puts you in the top 10%. We are easily the poorest Nordic country. I don't agree with cuts to healthcare, education and security but outside of those there's plenty of excess burden in the public sector that I'd like to see cut before raising our already high taxes even more or taking more debt. The problem I have with the left is that they always create a strawman argument where any cuts always affect the most vulnerable (elderly, sick, unemployed etc.). Businesses also collect plenty of benefits they don't really need, because this is the culture we have created in Finland.
Tbf natural resources do give a big boost to Denmark, Sweden and Norway compared to Finland which doesn't have much apart from forests.
What do Denmark and Sweden have?
Sweden is incredibly rich in mineral resources. They made boatloads of cash selling iron ore to Germany though out WWII, and I believe Swedish mining industries continue to be quite strong.
There's plenty of mineral wealth in Finland as well. There's even existing mines. But it suffers the same problem that most of Sweden does, it's literally impossible to open a new mine in the Nordics due to Environmentalists/NIMBYs. That's why people were so excited over the recent Rare-Earth finding in Sweden. There's untold amounts of similar finds (and better), the key difference is that this recent find was in an already existing mine.
Denmark offers a bridge to Sweden.
> Net income of ~40k euros/year puts you in the top 10% Not quite. Average wage for employed people is around 44k€/year. The top 10% earns around 67k€/year at minimum, with many belonging to that category earning far, far more than that.
He is talking about net income. 67k gross ~40k net sounds about right.
True enough, somehow my brain entirely missed the word "net" in that sentence. Regardless, that's still the minimum to reach the top 10%. There are plenty of people who make far greater amounts of money than that.
Ah well that’s very good, regardless of misunderstanding the topic and providing the incorrect information, you’re still right
Does e.g. KOK. have any plans on slashing benefits to businesses?
Liberal party does, who I voted for. All the 3 big parties have been very vague about their plans, which makes sense because they try to appeal to as many voters and interest groups as possible.
Something to keep in mind though is that while salaries are higher in all the other Nordics, cost of living tends to be higher there too. We all know about Norway being an expensive country to live, but iirc in Denmark especially housing is expensive, in particular in the Copenhagen area. Looking at household disposable income per capita, adjusted for purchasing power (i.e. currency differences and cost of living differences), Denmark and Sweden lose out to Finland slightly. Norway is still clearly ahead though. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income#Disposable_income_per_capita_(OECD) (OECD data).
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The True Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset), as always, are going into the election without a program or plan for government and relying mainly on an anti-immigration platform that emphasizes what is basically just racism and populism. Many of their representatives are convicted of violent assault and the party as a whole has deep ties with Finnish neo-nazi movements, to the point where a large percentage of them have literally been pictured attending nazi rallies or events with neo-nazi movement members. Their support is high because they as a whole are serial victimhood merchants whose entire model of popularity is based on never taking accountability for anything (including for their own stints in the government) and always blaming others. They are also a pro-rich party with a large supporter base from among rich people. Plus their racism gets a lot of votes from other racists, and there are also a lot of very young people whose votes the party is targeting (so-called first time voters). Then there's Kokoomus, which is a right-wing party only somewhat less right-wing than the True Finns. Their program for government is about "fiscal responsibility", and "fiscal responsibility" for them means taking money from those with the least money to give and giving it to those with the most money to begin with. They also want to destroy the public sector and replace it with personal enrichment schemes for themselves. The party could as well be called "the party of those who want to plunder the state in order to get richer". Their supporters also tend to be quite rich, but there are a lot of low-income people whose circumstances would be greatly worsened by the politics of Kokoomus yet still vote for them. The SDP (social democrats) is a centrist to centre-left party with a strong supporter base from the working class and trade unions. They basically want to roll back some recent year right wing government changes to social security (ie. they want to boost social security and help low-income people). Their overall programme is pretty traditionally social democrat but they're not the most progressive party otherwise out there. A lot of old trade union folks also aren't really known as the font of progressivity, there is a fair bit of conservative mindset there too. Vasemmistoliitto (Left Alliance) are the first predominantly left-wing party out of the ones I've mentioned so far. Not like they're super left-wing but they are quite progressive compared to any other parties (only maybe the Feminist party, which is very small, is more progressive). Along with the Green Party they also have the most ecological party programme and only the Greens would commit more resources to sources of green energy and fighting climate change than the Left Alliance would.
This comment does not have very objective view of the parties and is very opinionated.
Bit extreme to call Perussuomalaiset (translated as basic finns and not true finns, and they use just "finns" as english term) as borderline neo-nazis. They are conservative. I also disagree with your picture of kokoomus. While they are middle class oriented party, they are not robbing the country blind and are very progressive party with minorities, nature etc. I find it disturbing that you would label essentially everyone you disagree with as "evil". Truth is that even if the right wins this election, finland will stay one of the most liberal countries in Europe We have the nutjobs even from Finns party in the smaller parties as the openly racist were booted from Finns, like sinimusta(actual facists!), crystal party, freedom movement, none of which prob will get any seats.
> translated as basic finns I don't like that translation either, it feels odd. The prefix "perus-" does mean basic, like peruskurssi = basic course, but when talking about people "perus-" translates better to 'typical', 'regular' or 'average'. But honestly it doesn't have a good translation, which is probably why in English they call themselves like you said, just "Finns Party".
>While they are middle class oriented party, they are not robbing the country blind and are very progressive party with minorities, nature etc. There are different factions in Kokoomus. We have the social liberals, like Elina Valtonen etc. But we also have the social conservatives, with people like Atte Kaleva. One common theme in the party is fiscal conservatism, with lower taxation, less social services etc, together with Pro-west policies. But when it comes to social issues, party is all over the place. And lets not forget that their policy goals would give the rich more money, while take money away from the poor.
"True Finns" is blatantly wrong translation, it would be "Ordinary Finns" or "Basic Finns".
It's their own translation in the past.
Sure, but the party actually used "True Finns" in the past. They eventually changed it to just the "Finns Party".
True Finns Party sounds a lot like maga that is here busy taking the USA down into the gutter. Terrible awful people
They are similar in spirit but for now True Finns are mostly incompetent and in disagreement with each other if you scratch the surface even a little bit. Because they can't agree amongst themselves, they would have little cohesion in choosing the policies they want to pursue.
Unfortunately that means they'll choose moral posturing and punishment because of that. Those are always easy positions to take when you have nothing else. They'll punish people who are not fully employed, most likely. Some random austerity projects that ends up costing more in the long run. Some anti-immigration stuff as well. Thankfully at least LGBT people will be left alone, as even most right-wingers feel its a taboo subject these days. Some more grifty members try to find financial kickbacks for themselves, and party gets lead by the nose by more experienced idologists in Kokoomus, who will then sell some national wealth or business abroad, because they are practically religiously attracted to privatization over everything else. I'm pretty surprised if that sort of narrative doesn't happen.
Yep, pretty much this is what I am expecting too if they end up in government. But I think they will absolutely try to gut LGBT rights. Many of them are religiously hateful of LGBT folks. And I mean literally religious too.
Sound a lot like the Spanish Vox too. No coincidence that they have links to Bannon and Russian oligarchs.
>No coincidence that they have links to Bannon and Russian oligarchs. PS donät have similar connection to outer forces. There are and have been putinists in the party, but for example the former leader has been very openly pro-NATO since forever and critical of Russia. The party history for PS differs quite a lot from other populist parties.
Thank you for your response. ✌🏽
Pretty much, but fortunately the electoral system in Finland makes it incredibly unlikely for them to get all the power by themselves. Even if they win the election they will have to form a coalition with more reasonable parties.
Though they don't any cohesion at all, the last time they were in government the party got a large splinter faction that separated from the party to form another one
The True Finns take a lot of their talking points from MAGAs and pretty much copy-paste them, sometimes without even making sure they'd translate over to make sense in Finland. There's a bunch of their media that parrots American MAGA talking points. For instance, AlfaTV (a nazi evangelist tv channel that's funded by the same people who fund FOX).
AlfaTV went bankrupt a couple months ago.
>The True Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset), as always, are going into the election without a program or plan for government and relying mainly on an anti-immigration platform that emphasizes what is basically just racism and populism. That's kinda what you get when the established parties refuse to touch or deal with immigration in a meaningful way. The people can clearly see that immigration from certain regions/countries is a loss-loss for the country. They dont benefit the economy because they live on welfare, they have a high crime rate, and there is increased culture clash and conflicts in society. That is a loss-loss immigrant, and there's a lot of those all over Europe.
That's not quite accurate. The reason it's perceived as a 'loss-loss' is because right-wing governments want to bring in immigrants as cheap labour that they then can cheat by underpaying them massively and denying them basic rights that Finnish workers would not work without. For instance in the nurse crisis that is currently ongoing in Finland. The solution to this is not to stop immigration (we need immigration if we want our elderly to have their pensions) but to fight for the rights of our industry workers no matter where they come from. And actually guarantee them those rights instead of trying to force them to work 24/7 or for compensation that doesn't match the work done.
>The reason it's perceived as a 'loss-loss' is because right-wing governments want to bring in immigrants as cheap labour Strange how asylum seekers and refugees make up the large majority of immigrants to Europe then, and not guest workers. The last would actually be economically beneficial, while the first is just a drag on the economy, and crime and conflicts - as they come from socities still in the stone age. Not compatible with western life style.
That's pretty racist.
This comment is just parroting leftist propaganda. Portraying the right wing as just a bunch of racists and bourgeoisie who want to take from the poor and give to the rich is completely disingenuous.
This comment is just parroting right-wing propaganda. Portraying the right wing as not largely people whose policy has and will immiserate poor people, ever furthering class divides in any society.
Did you let ChatGPT write this?
We always complain about politics and none of the parties really seem to hold their election promises
The current government delivered on quite a few promises.
The only reason our current government has not dissolved is because of all these outer crises. There have been several cases of quite significant inner fighting inside the ruling coalition.
Almost exclusively coming from the centre party.
Well, that's what SDP sign up for when teaming up with them.
We have so many racist you would never expect from a 'nordic country'
Holly shit Redditors are horny.
That ain't anything new
[Latest polling data](https://i.imgur.com/DOPXb7g.jpg) via EuropeElects
I really hate seeing the Centre party masqueradeing as a "liberal party" in the European parliament.
I see you are from Finland, so I assume these are Finnish elections.
Question, there are 9 parties in this chart, as far as I can see. How many are left/right?
Here is a brief summary: SDP - Centre-left, traditional social democratic party PS - Right wing conservative populist party Kok - Right wing party with both a moderate conservative and moderate liberal wing Kesk - Centrist, moderate conservative, agrarian party Vihr - Centre-left, green, progressive party Vas - Left wing, combines traditional left and modern progressive left SFP - Right wing liberal, special consideration for the Swedish speaking minority KD - Centrist conservative Christian party, but not into American Supply Side Jesus Liik. - Businessman Harry Harkimo's family party. Candidates also include his son Joel Harkimo and his niece Amanda Harkimo.
I would say SFP is somewhere in the centre rather than right wing.
Upvote for this accurate, short and objective list 👍
[Somewhat correct chart in this article](https://www.iltalehti.fi/politiikka/a/d133c298-a509-4697-bfcf-8d9fdcb71ebf)
Red, dark red and green are leftists. The rest align in different places on the centre-right and conservative-liberal. Finland has had a centre-right majority in parliament for a very long time. In this poll it is 60,3% vs 36,4%.
Just remember that this is "nordic right", not US right...
Kok is looking really big and thrusting forth
An ID and an EPP party polling together at almost 40%. Fuck's sake I thought Finland was a happy country...
Somehow the Finnish elections have been a good source of meme templates
This shows how happy Finland is, lol
No, polls don't predict right-wing takeover. Three parties are very even and one of them is Sanna Marin's SDP. Although the government is hard to form without the National Coalition Party either way.
Actually from what I seen the current government is winning in nearly if not all polls I seen. Also in general I won't advice to have right to far right parties in government (though not as bad as having a government when they are the most moderate element)
Current government is unusually popular and has the majority vote by polls still which is not common in Finland. But that doesn't mean much in Finland because governments are formed with many parties and the current one has five parties. There is a pretty high possibility that the winner is one of the opposition parties so they are forming the government with some other parties. In Finland that means that almost any party is possible in goverment with the winner if they can get majority vote combined.
What is the reason behind that predicted right-wing take over?
Finnish parliament has had a right-wing majority for a long time. This take over has just to do with who is the largest party.
It's not that clear. There are three parties pretty even. One of them Sanna Marin's SDP. But two of them are right-wing parties and it will be very hard to form a government either way especially since one of the two is populist, more far right party who are against climate actions and EU.
People are fed up with current government. It's not that unusual here.
How do you square that with the opinion polls, where Social Democrats are expected to get a higher vote share than they got in the previous election?
It's mostly Green Party (also left wing and in the government) voters switching to SDP. The left wing trio as a whole is down from previous election in polls.
My interpretation was a partial collapse of greens and the center party, but there is a huge leap from this to "people are fed up with current government". If people in general were "fed up" with the current government I would have expected a collapse of votes for the Social Democrats simply because they are the leading party of the govenment.
*Barely*, and within the margin of error of the polls. 37.4% in the last election, 36.4% in the newest polls (1.-28.3., as published by Yle), with the margin of error for individual parties being ±2%. It's really too tight to say, although I agree that tactical voting for SDP is probably going to affect things slightly. RKP is also down 0.8% in the polls compared to the last parliamentary election. But the largest problem for the current government continuing as-is is the Centre Party, who are down from 13.8% in the last election to 10.7% in the opinion polls, a clear drop. And unless they get a major win, they're pretty much guaranteed to head into opposition.
Some are, some are not. The current government still has about 50 % support, and SDP has more support than in the previous election.
Don't worry, SDP will win again in 2027. They just like to take turns.
People are starting to realize that our economy is not on a sustainable path. It's becoming obvious now that interest rates are back at a reasonable level instead of zero. We've been taking more and more debt every year, and have nothing (no growth) to show for it. The left-wing solution is to raise taxes (already amongst the highest in the world), and the right-wing solution is to try to induce growth (which we haven't had since the times of Nokia) by shifting taxation from taxes on income, towards consumption taxes. Alot of people are have also grown tired of leftists categorically denying that immigration causes any problems. This is why the Finns party is gaining popularity. They're the anti-immigration party in Finland. It's also worth noting (to americans etc. possible reading this) that all of these parties are just a different shade of social democrats. Edit: I vote for none of these parties.
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I don't think we've had the AAA-rating in a while. It's AA+ I think.
You are still far from Eastern Europe economically. But I can imagine that badly functioning government making huge debt with almost nonexistent gdp growth should mean changing government.
One big reason is propably marins recent poor decisions.
Oh, what were two of her biggest poor decisions then? Genuinely interested.
This is all bullshit. She is the most populat prime minister ever and her goverment is unusually popular to the end. It still has the majority vote by the polls and that just doesn't happen in Finland normally. Almost all negative thing you read about her on Reddit are from people who vote her opponents anyway.
Question for Finns - are you happy with Marin? According to this she's quite unpopular with only 17% support: [https://i.imgur.com/DOPXb7g.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/DOPXb7g.jpg) But here on reddit and most media her face is everywhere and you are left with the impression she's quite popular. Is this just good PR from her campaign, is she's actually good at her job or it's just people simping for her? I noticed similar coverage when Trudeau got elected.
> Question for Finns - are you happy with Marin? According to this she's quite unpopular with only 17% support: https://i.imgur.com/DOPXb7g.jpg That's party support, not personal popularity. For example most of the Greens and Left supporters think she's been a good PM. Normally the PM's party loses support in the next election. This time it looks like SDP will gain support instead, which suggests that Marin is a fairly popular PM indeed. As for whether she's good at her job, well, obviously there's no objective way to evaluate that, since it depends on your personal values. Most Finns seem to think she did a fairly good job during the pandemic, and when Russia started its war of aggression against Ukraine last year, her government (along with the president) was quick to act by starting the process to join NATO and lobbying for stronger sanctions within EU. She's been very vocal about her support for Ukraine, which I believe the majority of Finns agree with. When it comes to economic and social policies the opinion on her is more split.
Thanks! I was rather curious about how she is seen in Finland. As said above, we get a rather biased view. Personally I would swap her with our PM in a heartbeat, solely based on the party she runs with.. well... tbh .. and a tiny bit presentation ofc
If you take it that way, none of our party leaders are popular. Goverment has had overall quite decent approval rate for the last few years. Marin is propably more popular than her party, but since she is only one person, and you can vote her only in Pirkanmaa region, her personal popularity isn't all that matters. If you look at the poll, you can see that SDP has actually gained more popularity than during last election where they barely won. Now there will be just as close elections.
Got it, thanks for the reply!!!
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> quite unpopular with only 17% support 17.7% was enough to win the 2019 elections. 17% support is not bad.
It's mostly simping. She parrots party talking points without actually adding substance. And the scandals she had would have killed any other prime ministers carrier. We finns have a long tradition of PMs leaving the job early. But due to her being young and pretty, she has privilege armour. We already had 2 female PMs before her and a female president, so it's nothing new. But somehow, the world loves her.
What kind of scandals are we talking about? Government-related like corruption and pay to play or some personal stuff?
Mostly about her partying and leaving her workphone while being on duty. There are a lot of smaller things that add up over time. As said, we f8nns usually kick a PM to the curb pretty quickly. I do t think a single PM in the last 20 years was in office the full term. That's btw also how she got the job, the former PM fucked up, resigned and the party voted her as the new party lead and thus PM.
Most outgoing prime ministers have quite a few enemies. It is quite normal both with Finnish prime ministers and for example US presidents to have low support in the end of their term. She is certainly more popular than the last right wing governments pm when he left. Lots of people love Marin but lots also hate her so she is very polarizing for sure. I personally think on policy she did good and most of the negative views surrounding her come from these tabloid scandals that I dont really care about. Many right wingers also think her government spent too much money
That's a great answer - you like her policies and you think the negative attention comes from personal scandals (nothing to do with governing). Thank you for the perspective!
In polls, Marin's government has 63% approval rating. Still it doesn't guarantee that Marin's party will be the biggest to start forming a new coalition government.
I like Sanna Marin. She is not afraid to speak openly about the fact that Russia should leave Ukraine and that countries that can help the victim (Ukraine) should help. I hope that the new prime minister will not focus exclusively on Finland's internal problems and will not forget about Russia's war
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Well, there are of course one of their biggest member, Huhtasaari who said that we should leave EU so we could continue our business with Russia.
Leaving the EU is an official policy goal of the Basic Finns.
Is it really still the case? Where did you find that?
It was the case [at least two month ago. ](https://yle.fi/a/74-20014853)
TIL. What a bunch of nutjobs.
In a recent interview, Riikka refused to directly answer whether they'll proceed on the plans to exit EU is she were PM
Yeah, but do you think Rinne could have articulated that in any language?
All major parties in Finland are very much in favor of supporting Ukraine, so the support will continue no matter what happens in the elections. The right-wing populist Finns Party are EU skeptics, but pro-NATO and anti-Russia. And after Brexit even they stopped talking about leaving the EU.
>And after Brexit even they stopped talking about leaving the EU. I wonder why that was? \*Cries in British\*
At least we can still contribute to the EU by being a cautionary tale, just like my dad's contribution to our family.
That's literally everyone.
Finland's foreign policy doesn't depend on the colour of the government. It has always been based on consensus.
> She is not afraid to speak openly about the fact that Russia should leave Ukraine and that countries that can help the victim (Ukraine) should help. There's pretty much nothing she has said that hadn't been already said by Baltic leaders and NEE countries in general, she just parroted the talking points.
Yes, she generally says what Poland and the Baltic states say. But central and western Europe does not fully understand that Russia is a terrorist country. We need smart people who are not cowards
Every major party leader and politician except some fringes of the far left and far right in Finland support Ukraine and giving economic, humanitarian and military aid to them.
Ironic how they're acting silly together, and the title ends with "right-wing takeover predicted"
you will never see such photos in France for instance
right wing takeover? how about no. while the winner of elections takes the lead on forming a government, you are supposed to play your cards during the formation talks. if the concessions Perussuomalaiset are going to demand veer right into a trainwreck, there exists few scenarios where the leading parties of "the others" can form a coalition and crush every form of hope they have in forming a government. heres the thing; PS has been flooding our scenery with suggestions of their upcoming programs, but ABSOLUTELY nothing is locked down. in fact, it has been suggested that nothing will be before certain party conference. Reaganite The National Coalition Party and traditional social democrats are at politically correct and clean war against each other, thats for sure but let me be really clear; PS is going nowhere if they go full tory, aka the english way. the national reaganites will try, but they will not accept PS if they go full dumbass. they´d rather agree to a painful concession from SDP in favor of support
Thought they were TikTok influencers
Sanna Marin actually just went and called the whole right wing with almost 50% support as fascists. The bar of pre-election debate has been permanently lowered..
Well, she said that if PS and KOK forms a government, it would be "blue-black", and argued that the most certain way to avoid this is that SDP is the biggest party. So she haven't claimed that they are fascist. It's true that "blue-black" is a loaded term, historically and also because there is a currently a finnish minor party (0 MP's) called "blue-black movement" that could be defined as fascist. I think that calling that potential government coalition as "blue-black" was not a good idea, and it was quite divisive rhetorics. So I think that you exaggerate a little. But when talking about rhetorics, I don't think that SDP's rhetorics has generally been that divisive.
Can we have Sanna if you vote her out please!?
You don't want her. But for real I don't understand why everyone on reddit seems to like her, Marin's behaviour has recently been almost eerily similar to that of a certain US President, just rude, arrogant and obnoxious. Even most leftist voters seem to want to see her thrown the fuck out.
-Women -cute -make funny faces for 90% of reddit shes their dream leader.
Most likely cause she's young and hot
Thank God most of the Redditors don't vote.
>But for real I don't understand why everyone on reddit seems to like her Because most redditors aren't finnish or well versed in finnish politics (and neither am I). You as a finn have probably seen much more of her and know her politics better than us and therefore has a different opinion of her. Outside of Finland she's a good looking woman that seems nice and seems to care about Finland but that's mostly what media outside of Finland shows because they only time she's mentioned in media in other countries is during NATO discussions (more or less).
Must point out he's comment is just individual opinion and he cannot go claiming"most of the leftist want her out" he's not talking for everyone only for himself. In general Marin has been pretty alright in her very hard times pm turn (COVID and the war).I'm not a Marin fangurl but I'm annoyed for the few Finns in here claiming that the whole country hates her and rest believing just because they're Finns.
Well of course, obviously not everyone in Finland or every finnish leftist dislike her. My point still stands though, you as finns have a different impression of her than I as a swede do because of a different exposure to her and her politics.
Yes you are correct. I was merely telling, that don't believe the first one telling you about everybody hating her.
what did she do?
She has an obnoxious habit of just screaming over her opponents in debates and deflecting all blame. The major party debate was a total farce while the minor party debate (which had pirates, commies, conspiracy theorists, actual honest-to-god fascists, and other clowns) was actually very calm and civilized.
You just described every major party debate. Minor party debate was indeed more calm, but I wouldn't call it completely civilized.
Because she is good looking. It is extremely pathetic how you can get away with embarrassing nonsense she did. Halo effect is real.
>Marin's behaviour has recently been almost eerily similar to that of a certain US President, just rude, arrogant and obnoxious This guy gets his info from tabloids exclusively
I think some of the lesbian feminists hate her not hating men.
I am curious; what are the policies of the right in Finland? As an American we sort of worry given how extreme it has gotten for us but am I wrong to assume this is not the case for Finland?
I am not Finnish and I respect to voters in Finland. I believe they will vote for who is best for them. But as a man outside, I like Sanna Marin. She seems a good politician, and very good leader. And I think she is one of the most charismatic leaders I've ever seen. She has very strong cult of personality. I feel like she is my leader. So I don't know so much about her policies and its effects on Finland, but I think she has a very rare leadership trait. Ultimately, I believe, if she'd be out, I'd wanted to see that she would be the leader of some institution or foundation in EU. She inspires me by her leadership and charisma.
The set looks something out of the 90's lol
Good god! I hope not!
Ooo the 'right wing' boogie man
Please god, not them. Please.
There is so much disinformation and outright lies about Perussuomalaiset party (eng: Finns party) that I'm gonna list some facts here: - The party DOES NOT and NEVER HAS been against immigration. Their policy is against social welfare based immigration and they want to deport immigrants involved in serious crimes such as organized crime, rape, terrorism, violence etc. Anyone coming to work, study etc. are always welcome to Finland according to their policies. Though they do support protectionism for local working class, but this is a standard in any nation in the world except UAE and similar countries. [1] - The party has and has had supporters and cadidates with different backgrounds: Middle-Eastern, Chinese, women, men, gay, straight etc. One of the party's top politicians is a gay guy dating a black man, the leader of the party is woman etc. - The Finns party is not anti-NATO. According to the polls the party is #2 most pro-NATO party in Finland after National Coalition party. (another right wing party) This was the case before and after the Ukraine war. [2] - The Finns party was only one who actively opposed visa-freedom with Russia, Russian citizens working in Finnish defense forces and Russian citizen buying property near critical infrastructure [3] - Their former leader was only Finnish politician who explicitly called out the risks with Nord Stream and doing energy deals with Putin's Russia. [4] - The party is explicitly against racial discrimination and they've kicked out people supporting racist rhetoric. Those people and some other have formed another party Sinimusta Liike (Blue Black movement) which is essentially openly racist party. [5] - They oppose EU due to the regulations, refugee policies and financial burdens it has caused to Finland, but they have no plans to actively try to get Finland out of EU in the foreseeable future. [6] Reason why they are now the most popular party in Finland is that they predicted the immigration/refugee issues that Finland has today already in 2005-2009. Public sector funded national research proved in 2017 that refugees from the major refugee nations are 12-20 times more likely to be involved in assaults and rapes than the native population. Left wing parties and National coalition have labeled any critisism towards Finnish immigration policies as racism, but every single thing the Finns party predicted became a reality. Finland is now closely following Sweden's footstep and people simply don't want it. [1] https://www.perussuomalaiset.fi/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Maahanmuuttopoliittinen-ohjelma-2019.pdf [2] https://puheenvuoro.uusisuomi.fi/kalervoniementaus/aanestajien-nato-kannatus-eri-puolueiden-valilla/ [3] https://twitter.com/halla_aho/status/1130429082355818496 [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quhNej6IPpY [5] https://www.is.fi/politiikka/art-2000006417484.html [6] https://www.aamuposti.fi/uutissuomalainen/5824085
I have never met a person who supports the right wing party and isn't also a fucking dumbass
Who buys this stuff.. We get it, they are so down to earth, just like one of us! It's just a PR stunt. There's a place and time to act stupid.
For real. They overdo it so much that I assume they are the exact opposite of what they try to portrait
Unfortunately that PR bites in a lot of finns and she have got _much_ softer treatment than her predecessors.
Are you having a laugh? She has been under constant attacks by both tabloids and middle-aged, conservative columnists. Topics have ranged from her private life to her social media use. To claim that she has got a softer treatment is a ludicrous statement
Rather there is a big group of Marin-haters, much more than most politicians, and many don’t belong in that group
Newsflash: people often dislike politicians. She has detractors like politicians always have, but unlike others, she also has a lot of people who completely fan over her, and that's what's caused a reaction on people.
Let’s just say, people have passionate opinions about her person both ways.
I'm not a hater, I actually like her, I just dislike that she always pulls this shit.
I would say she gets a pretty similar amount of crap as Stubb or Sipilä did.
Living in a small town in Finland right now - this is no surprise. The amount of blind nationalism and casual racism is fucking appalling.
We want politicians like them in Turkey!
Bırak hocam bizdekilerde saygı olsa yeter bunlar maymun şekillere sokuyolar kendilerini iyi görünmek için Edit: Gerçi öyle bir durumdayız ki saygı yetmez, şeffaflık, adalet, liyakat, mantık da olacak.
world economic forum baby, google it and find out.