The death of Finnish party-politics

Today, I trashed the Finnish political parties.

Finland is supposed to have a multi-party political system. We should have left-wing social democrats, right-wing conservatives, new-age greens and everything in between. Three of the biggest parties have like 20-25% popularity each and three or four next like 5-10%. In short, there should be enough credible parties to choose from. I consider myself as a liberal but unfortunately the official liberal party has no political power. Thus, I’ve mainly voted for the conservative right as I’ve thought their values most closely reflect those of individualism and free markets. They are one of the top-3 parties.

In today’s Helsigin Sanomat, the party’s new chairman, a 32-year-old obvious political freshman answers questions before the coming municipal elections. He looks cool and credible in the picture. His face is also on the party’s official election ads (no other party uses such a person-centric approach). Ok, here is the new image of the party I’ll most probably vote. I read on.

Q: “Should tax money collected from the capital region be distributed more equally to rural areas?”
A: “Everyone has joint reponsibility…”, he starts the answer and my eyebrows go a bit higher. Then comes the bomb: “…I think it is the right kind of solidar policy.”

WTF? Right kind of solidar policy? When did the chairman of our only party (supposedly) opposing socialists during the soviet years started to speak about solidarity? What the hell was he thinking when he gave that answer? Was he thinking at all?

I didn’t object the content of this answer (that rural areas should be supported) but the arguments he gave simply made me mad. I threw the paper to the floor and called my friend who’s been a member of the party for years. He was very surprised to hear what their chairman had said. Solidarity. Really?

(The chairman wasn’t that impressive in other questions either. He could give the only clear answers to funny questions like “tobacco or cigar?” or “smoked or baked meat?” – I hope the journalist wasn’t ironic)

I did some research later during the day. I read through all the ideology and principles stuff from the main right-wing party web pages. No mention about solidarity. I go on to the social democrat site. The very first sentence of their principles states that one the main values of social democrats is solidarity. There you go.

What is the value of politics if the parties have no principles anymore?

I actually stopped voting conservatives already at the recent EU elections. I learned they are part of European conservatives in spite of there is a stong liberal group at the EU parliament. Instead, I voted for a candidate from the Swedish Folkparty since they belong to this liberal group. But I still felt some sympathy for the Finnish conservatives. Until it ended today.

I went on to daydream. Maybe the opportunity for liberals in Finland in the long term is the Center Party. They also belong to the liberal group at the EU parliament and are one of the three parties with enough popularity to take government reponsibility (the other two being social democrats and conservatives). The problems of the Center Party are populism, dull image and history. Their current image rests on a former Miss Finland (the populist part) and an uber-conservative prime minister, who’s 100% sober, very religious and haven’t ever smiled (the dull part). A problematic historical shadow comes mainly from the soviet years, when the party was constantly in power and authority went over democracy. They still have one too-well-known active guy around, a former minister and currently a member of the EU parliament, giving questionable image to the whole party.

Maybe I’d start believing in the Finnish political parties again if there were a liberal takeover in the the Center Party. Volunteers around?