Finland headed to the polls on Sunday to elect thousands of councillors in a range of local and regional bodies.
The Social Democrats took a big win in the municipal elections, taking nearly one in four votes nationwide to push the National Coalition Party of Prime Minister Petteri Orpo into second place.
In the county council elections, for 21 regional bodies that arrange social and healthcare outside Helsinki, the SDP also topped the poll. The Centre Party recorded a good result in its rural heartlands to secure third spot.
Government parties did poorly, with all but the NCP losing support compared to the previous municipal elections in 2021. Turnout in the municipal election was 54.2 percent, while the county elections saw 51.7 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots.
The dual vote for municipal and county councils caused logistical issues for election officials, with counting slower than usual for Finland, where large numbers vote in advance and results are usually clear within a couple of hours of polls closing.
The Finns Party saw support collapse compared to the last municipal election, with the party nearly halving its vote from four years ago. They lost support in several towns that are seeing hospital services cut back as part of the central government’s savings drive.
I just congratulated my Finnish friends and one of them explained to me that Perussuomalaiset (the party’s name in Finnish) directly translates to “The Basic Finns”! I really hope the opposition is using that in English interviews.
Their official English party name used to be ‘True Finns’ but at some point someone probably figured out that sounds a bit elitist; Like everyone not supporting them is not a true Finn?
2 years ago, when I first heard about them in Helsinki, I genuinely thought they were a Sami party. But yeah, that is usually the underlying message of such names, like for example Forza Italia in Italy (which also meant that football journalists were directly turned into political megaphones during the games of the National team).
Apparently now the official English name is The Finns. Calling themselves Basic in English wasn’t to their taste apparently.
Under the Far Right government in Finland, homelessness increased.
Now, maybe Finland can get back to having real public options available for housing without asking if anyone ‘deserves’ to have a roof over their heads.
The Far Right, no matter the country, always succeed in turning everything good about civilization into shit exclusively for themselves. If we ever have another national election in the United States, I don’t think the Far Right fascists will be able to win anything.
(and that, admittedly, is an incredibly hopeful view)
You’re forgetting trump promised to make it so that you’d never “have to” vote again!
Trump has won again, despite how he acted last time.
He did weirdly less than he could have in his first term. Most Americans did not directly suffer the way they and the rest of the world are now.
It’s also a two-party system, so it’s not super easy just to vote out one ideology.
Yes due to harris and the Democrats abandoning their base to cater to trumps.
Trump’s base used to be the democrat base. Blue collar workers getting screwed by corporations. Democrats are polling so low because their actions led to this group being overlooked.
Even being lied to feels good after you’ve been taken for granted / ignored. At least you feel seen.
I still somewhat struggle to explain to myself why he won.
I’ve considered it being a protest vote, not one with a clear goal or particular signal in mind, but just as a F you to whomever was in power, but that doesn’t explain why people worship him.
I’ve considered it being a result of conspiracy theories and his ability to use those to his advantage by occasionally partial recognizing them and playing along with the story, but that doesn’t explain why over half the country would vote for him.
I’ve considered it being a consequence of Moscow trying to destabilize the US by supporting a candidate that is easily bought or manipulated. Although there definitely has been some interference, believing it to be effective to an extent of swaying the elections seems almost like wishful thinking at this point.In the end, I’m still not entirely sure what it is. Maybe you’re right and it’s really that simple.
There’s also that Biden basically sabotaged the democrat campaign by stepping down only at the last minute, and then proceeding to pressure Kamala to not distance her campaign from the Biden campaign
It could be a bit of them all; his base isn’t large enough on its own but, together with those who wanted to protest vote and those looking for relief from the economy and those who hated the idea of voting for a black woman, they may’ve all been enough to get him over the finish line.
I think also big news is how much the Left Alliance party grew as well this election
The trump effect worldwide.
My impression as an outsider (some, but limited, exposure to Finnish politics) is that the Finns have the right way of dealing with these far right, maybe. What they always do it seems like is to create a coalition government of the largest parties, including the far right. This keeps them from riding the underdog wave of support for years, and exposes their incompetence in real political issues (usually these parties only have one well-formulated stance, and that is anti immigration - that’s the solution to every single other issue).
I’m welcome to criticism if my outsider perspective is misinformed. (-:
As a German, I can assure you that this strategy only works in Finland. Forming a coalition with Nazis brought Germany the Nazi dictatorship and World War II.
Luckily, the far-right here in Finland is less extreme than some of their counterparts in Europe. Finns Party members aren’t literal Nazis (or at least most of them aren’t), and some media outlets, including Yle, usually refuse to label them as far-right at all. Personally, I’m of the opinion that in the context of the Nordics, being far-right doesn’t necessarily mean you’re full-blown Nazi and that’s why I editorialized the title a bit.
Finns Party members aren’t literal Nazis (or at least most of them aren’t)
Just the one or two who call themselves nazis
In Germany there’s a word for the strategy you’re proposing: in der Regierung “entzaubern” - “demystifying” them in government.
As someone has said, the Nazis were lifted into a coalition government which was the last step before their takeover of the country. I agree that this was bad, but it’s a bit simple to compare this to the current situation.
A better comparison is Austria. Austria did exactly what you proposed - the establishment conservatives went into coalition with the extremist right, and after one election, they were able to ditch them. Cool. But the effect of this was permanently legitimizing the right. In the last election the FPÖ, a party founded by actual old nazis, won a plurality of votes. It took a grand coalition of three parties to keep them out of government.
What else is there to do? In Germany and Austria, the right is much more extreme than in Finland. Germany is also a lynchpin in european politics, which the right wants to destroy. In Finland, even the right is anti-russia. In Germany, it’s the conservatives who traditionally dominate. When they compete with the extremist right, they’re not on the other side of the political spectrum, just a little to the center. In Finland, when the social democrats point out the mistakes of the right, they’re more believable and persuasive, because they’re actually markedly different from the party they’re criticizing.
There is another way to combat the right. When the center holds, and is able to agree on certain principles, they can “quarantine” the right. If they don’t, they’ll be unable to compete with other democratic parties, and have to compete only with the right. If they do quarantine, they can ignore the right, while focusing on their actual bread-and-butter issues while avoiding being pulled into a bullshit spiral. This is the current strategy of the german democratic parties (CDU/CSU, SPD, Greens, Linke). It remains to be seen if the strategy will survive the next four years. If it doesn’t, I prophesy dark trouble for germany.
In Sweden we’ve been quarantining the Nazis for a long time, but eventually the right wingers lost enough voters to them which made it impossible for them to win without some sort of cooperation.
At that point they started campaigning for the Nazis, saying how much they’ve grown and changed. This of course led to the right losing even more to the Nazis and gave the Nazis a strong bargaining position when they won the election together.
Not saying that the strategy is wrong, but it requires morally fit conservatives or voters.
I think the best line is via rule of law, but it has to be law passed when there isn’t a threat from such a party. If it’s in response to a particular group rising, then it’s seen as an attack on that group and not defence of the country.
Here in the Netherlands the far right party became the biggest after the second largest party tried to win votes by saying they think their voters are right (it didn’t, some of their voters moved to the far right party after they validated their points in the open). They are now part of a coalition and for the first time I hear public criticism of their own voters, because exactly as you point out their incompetence is showing. They made promises they can’t keep for example. It’s better they are not the outsider / underdog that can harness the people’s dislike of the government.
I have to say i have heard far more “The kabinet is blocking wilders and thats why he can’t do anything” rethoric then actual criticism from pvv voters on wilders.
I’m not saying they suddenly switched sides, most of him defend him like usual, but there is both people on tv who say they’re disappointed in them as people I know personal. They are losing credibility since they are in the government.
The far-right is a completely dead-on-arrival set of ideologies based in hatred, either for “others” or simply just not considering other people human beings and caring more about ones wallet and personal comfort than someone else’s well-being. They can go fuck themselves and do not deserve to be legitimized, and if that builds enough support to be a sizeable force then whatever country it is is filled with morons and, frankly, deserves whatever they get.
All governments are “coalitions” when no single party has a simple majority and frankly if you run a government and don’t even communicate with the other parties you should be run out office follwed by being run through a large, pointy object. Anyway, the idea of “including all the represetatives in a coalition” should be THE FUCKING BASELINE.
Here in Canada, the Conservatives time and again show how wildly incompetent and unwilling to behave and collaborate they are yet they still catch big numbers while having little to no policy except crying like babies every time the CBC
is mean to themreports on them accurately. The left-wing and center parties made a coalition a few years back and the Conservatives called it cheating. They also talk about being “the official opposition” a lot but never really seem to worry about cooperation. Part of me wants to see them get a minority government and have to beg for votes from the very people they spewed hate towards for so long.
They lost support in several towns that are seeing hospital services cut back as part of the central government’s savings drive.
🥳
Good. Austerity belongs in the trashcan of history
