The Great Nordic Thread

[Helsinkian]

The most recent issue causing a crisis in the Finnish government is a bill that concerns the Sami Parliament's electoral rolls. Essentially, around 60 percent of the Sami want to declare the remaining 40 percent to be "non-Sami" (claiming that their connection to the Sami language and community is too distant) and kick them out of the electoral rolls. Marin's government, with the exception of the Centre Party, has wanted to pass a bill that would allow them to do that. The Centre Party is strongly opposed.

Marin could still bring the bill to parliament and might be able to pass it with votes from the opposition National Coalition Party. But that would go against the long-standing tradition that the government only puts forth bills which the government backs unanimously. And with elections in April, the bill might not make it out of the committees in time anyway (after the election, the process would have to start from the beginning).

There are around 6,000 people on the electoral rolls of Finland's Sami Parliament, and the bill would purge over 2,000 of them. The majority of the Sami in Finland seemingly want the definition of who is Sami to be so stringent that their numbers will probably go to zero in a hundred years. In that sense they remind me of the Parsi of India.

[Helsinkian]

Part of the reason why the Centre Party is desperate for some wins before the election:

Kantar/HS poll (change from 2019 election)

National Coalition Party 24.2% (+7.2)
Social Democratic Party 19.3 (+1.6)
Finns Party 17.4 (-0.1)
Centre Party 10.1 (-3.7)
Green League 9.2 (-2.3)
Left Alliance 8.0 (-0.2)
Swedish People's Party 4.4 (-0.1)
Christian Democrats 3.3 (-0.6)
Movement Now 1.9 (-0.4)

[Helsinkian]

The organisers of Helsinki Pride have banned the National Coalition Party and the Centre Party from taking part in this summer's Pride events. This is because some of their MPs voted against the trans self-ID law that was passed at the end of the last parliament. While the majority (13 to 12) of Centre MPs voted against it, most NCP MPs actually voted for it (26 for, 10 against), and the bill would not have become law without their votes. The Finns Party and the Christian Democrats of course also voted against, but they have never wanted to take part in Pride anyway.

[Helsinkian]

Some recent Finnish political news from the past few days:

1) Minister Junnila

The new Finnish government, which started its work a week ago, came close to collapsing today in a confidence vote on the Finns Party's Minister of Economic Affairs, Vilhelm Junnila. Normally, such votes are predictable party-line affairs. However, this time there were desertions in the governing coalition, as 7 MPs of the Swedish People's Party voted for no confidence, another 3 SPP MPs abstained, and 2 National Coalition Party MPs did not vote despite being present. In the end, Junnila received confidence with 95 votes for, and 86 against (there is no requirement to get a majority of all 200 MPs; only a majority of those voting, not counting abstentions). If all opposition MPs had been present, the no-confidence motion would have succeeded, but many were absent. SPP had suggested that the Finns Party swap Junnila for someone else, but Finns Party's leader Riikka Purra declined and stated that the party would have left the coalition if the motion had succeeded.

The Junnila controversy concerns his perceived far-right links. First, a few years ago he had been a speaker at an event attended by neo-nazis. He countered that it was an event open for everyone (a memorial on the anniversary of an islamist terrorist attack), and the nazis just happened to show up. Second, in the 2019 election he had been assigned the electoral number 88 -- that was not the issue, as the numbers are assigned randomly to candidates; however, it can be argued that he did some dogwhistling when he then used the slogan 'On the 14th day, 88' in a banner. He countered that he was merely stating the date of the election and his electoral number, but of course the combination of the numbers 14 and 88 has another meaning as well. And then ahead of this year's election, when another candidate of the party in his district was assigned the number 88, Junnila was recorded saying in an event: 'Congratulations on the excellent electoral number. I know it's a winning card. 88 of course refers to two H letters, of which I won't say more.' Junnila later regreted this as an inaproppriate joke.

Edit. 30 June: Two days after the confidence vote, Junnila has resigned, as the controversies around him continued to swirl. The final straw was the Christian Democrats turning against him after discovering a parliamentary motion from four years ago where Junnila advocated for the expansion of abortion services in Africa as a solution to climate change, calling the proposal "climate abortions".

2) Deputy Mayor caught spray-painting a graffiti

Left Alliance's Paavo Arhinmäki, former Minister of Culture and currently one of Helsinki's deputy mayors, was caught spray-painting an illegal graffiti in a train tunnel in the neighbouring city of Vantaa. He is being billed €3,500 for the cleanup and also faces charges for obstructing rail traffic. He is still expected to continue in his office. Arhinmäki has a history of supporting 'counter culture' and has advocated the establishing of places to paint legal graffitis; this was not such a location, however.

3) Lenin Park renamed

Helsinki City Council has voted (57 to 20) to rename the City's Lenin Park. The small park was named after Vladimir Lenin in 1970, during the era of 'Finlandisation' -- but even as late as 2000 the city tried to place a bust of Lenin in the park, though that fell through. The park's new name will be decided later.

4) 'Independent' candidates for President

Candidates have started to announce their bids for the January 2024 presidential election, and many are choosing to stand as independents. These include Pekka Haavisto, Olli Rehn, Paavo Väyrynen and possibly Mika Aaltola. This despite the fact everyone knows that Haavisto is Green and Rehn is Centre Party -- apparently they think they will get more votes as nominally independent candidates. For Väyrynen, this would be his fifth presidential election (he was previously Centre's candidate thrice, and an independent candidate once). Aaltola is a foreign policy expert who has received a lot of air time commenting on Russia and its war in Ukraine; he has not officially announced, but is reportedly leaning towards it. The Finnish President's powers are mainly in the fields of foreign and defence policy (but not EU policy, as that is not counted as foreign policy).

[Helsinkian]

Finland has confirmed the purchase of the Israeli David's Sling air defence system, becoming its first operator outside Israel.

https://twitter.com/IsraelWarRoom/status/1723634618811789626

Some Left Alliance politicans are now screeching about buying Israeli weapons.

[Helsinkian]

The Finns Party leadership election will take place on 14 August, with the main candidates being the MPs Riikka Purra and Sakari Puisto. Purra is favoured to win.

Purra wins with 64% of votes.

The National Coalition Party is now the only major party never to have had a female leader.

any contenders for that role currently in the ncp?

Yes, Elina Valtonen (current foreign minister) is considered the most likely successor to Petteri Orpo.

[Helsinkian]

There was a school shooting today in Vantaa, Finland. A 12-year-old student shot three classmates of the same age, killing one and seriously injuring two. The gun was registered to a family member of the shooter. Police described the act as premeditated.

Nevertheless, the shooter will not be charged with anything and will not spend a single day behind bars. This is because the Finnish law states that no one under the age of 15 is criminally culpable for their actions. I have long considered that absurd, and this case just underlines that. A 12-year-old is not a toddler. A 12-year-old knows what murder is and what happens when you shoot someone. Sweden's law is the same in this regard, and there criminal gangs actively recruit children under 15 for this very reason.

The shooter will probably be taken into custody of social workers and moved into another school with a new name. Everyone who knows his identity will be forced to keep quiet. And then we'll just wait to see if he does it again.

[Helsinkian]

There haven't been any concrete proposals, no.

[Helsinkian]

In a rather bizarre episode, an MP for the Finns Party, Timo Vornanen, was recently arrested for an altercation outside a Helsinki nightclub where he allegedly pointed a pistol in the direction of a group of people and then fired a "warning shot" into the ground. The gun was legal, but you're not generally permitted to carry one with you. Ironically, Vornanen was a police officer prior to his election.

Expelling an MP is not easy. It would first require being sentenced to imprisonment (including a suspended term) with the appeals process completed. Only then would the parliament be able to to expel him with a two-thirds majority. In the meanwhile I would expect him to be suspended from the parliamentary group.