FINNS PARTY CONVENTION: The nationalist Finns Party, which has been undergoing a trial of fire in the government for past racist comments, had its party convention in Tampere, my hometown. The party expectedly changed its party secretary (ie. the main party worker). Their former party secretary Arto Luukkanen was quite a ridiculous character, and changing the party secretary is common when parties have no other essential personnel changes to make.
The party convention served as a time for the party to clarify some things about their line, such as vis-à-vis the scandals. According to Riikka Purra, the party leader, herself implicated for racist forum comments 15 years ago, the party is done repenting, and they directly castigated Swedish People’s Party, their main governmental opponent, for bringing the government apart. (There are also those inside the SPP, mind, who think that the party, or at least some of its MPs, should act nicer.)
Apart from this, Purra bashed the media (par for the course) and outlined the party’s new economic policy, which continues the party’s turn to the right not only in the values questions but also on economics, where it was previously more centrist, or at least more inchoate. There is now very little difference in the outlined economic policies between the neoliberal National Coalition and ostensibly populist Finns Party, at least insofar as austerity aimed at the poorest goes.
All this has both an ideological function – it serves to “make the Left cry”, an important goal for Finns Party in all situations – and a tactical one; it messages the ruling National Coalition that this government is indeed their best hope for driving through the right-wing economic policy they desire, and this, in turn, will ensure that National Coalition will do everything they can to keep the government together and the Swedish People’s Party in line.
The Swedish People’s Party’s chair Anna-Maja Henriksson, in turn, stated last week that if she had known that the Finns Party politicians had made racist statements, they would not have entered this government. This caused much mockery, as the statements in question were mostly freely available for everyone to read and, indeed, often unavoidable if one paid any great attention to the party’s sayings and doings.
Oh well, at least the government’s vaunted anti-racism task force has been holding meetings, though it is unlikely to lead to anything concrete (which is not unusual for governmental task forces in general, of course).
PRESIDENTIAL CLASH: The presidential race churns on. While the presidency is no longer as influential as before, this race still tends to occupy the attentions of Finns moreso than many other elections, perhaps because it just is more fun to talk about personalities than parties. Thus, the race’s twists and turns frequently feature in news.
One drama that featured a lot of last week – perhaps because it also might have ramifications on wider politics – was the situation inside National Coalition, the prime ministerial party. For three presidential elections, National Coalition has experienced no difficulties in picking their candidate, as the former financial minister and then President Sauli Niinistö was, implicitly or explicitly, that candidate in all those elections. After a failed run in 2006, Sauli was elected president in 2012 and then re-elected in 2018.
Few years ago Alexander Stubb, the former MEP, Prime Minister, and Finance Minister, would have be an obvious choice to follow Niinistö. However, these days, Stubb just can’t find a proper hole to fit in the race. His party has turned to the right, which is in odds to the cosmopolitan, pro-European neoliberalism he has supported throughout his career. Those who want that liberalism can rather vote for Pekka Haavisto of the Greens, the also-ran of the last election and the odds-on favorite for this one. Those who want a foreign policy expert are probably entranced by independent candidate Mika Aaltola, and so on.
Thus, before his candidacy could be announced, Stubb surprisingly faced a challenger, as Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen announced his willingness to candidacy. Its hard to see why Häkkänen, a young man with little to distinguish him from a generic politician, would see himself as presidential timber. However, the real reason might simply be that he wants to be the Prime Minister.
After it had become obvious that Orpo was implicitly trying to get Stubb to run, challenging his authority on this would also serve to challenge Orpo. Orpo’s status as a PM is not particularly strong due to the events of the past months (see this for details if you need a refresher), and thus challengers for his position are already sharpening their knives behind his back. Häkkänen’s wish to get more power is not exactly a secret, and as such brute forcing himself into candidacy would have been a major boon to his project.
In the end, while a lot of support was expressed to Häkkänen, the party board ended up unanimously supporting Stubb’s candidacy, and he then formally announced that he’s throwing his hat into the ring. Häkkänen, and other potential rebels, fell smoothly into line. Stubb, in all probability, will go on to get a minor slice of the vote and an also-ran status, unless something surprising happens.
IN OTHER NEWS, the indigenous Sámi parliament reform is gearing up for another round after the previous government failed to bring it through, a D-list celebrity from the past went missing in Denmark (and soon turned out OK), and Finland was supposed to be hit by the storm Hans in a big way but this turned out to be a damp squib.
Image: Alexander Stubb. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Alexander_Stubb_in_2018#/media/File:2018-07-04_Alexander_Stubb-0793.jpg