Finland is famous for having being named as the world’s least corrupt country. This has been the result a number of times in recent years of the organisation Transparancy International’s survey. The Finnish media has always liked to trumpet this fact in the way that small countries do (understandably) like to enjoy moments when they are top of the league.
However, the ongoing party election financing scandal demands some serious reconsideration of our position as a land untroubled by corruption.
An interesting article in this morning’s Hufvudstadsbladet (HBL) reveals an interesting perspective on just why Finland is so clean in the eye’s of the transparency index.
According to Superintendent Jenni Klemola of the Central Criminal Police, who has for the last year been involved in a group actively following corruption cases in Finland, the explanation is simple. We simply don’t use the word corruption very much. She explained to HBL, “The difference between Finland and countries in southern Europe is that we talk about failures of duty, bribery and fraud without using the word ‘corruption’. In corresponding cases on the continent, the media would quickly scream out the news as a new corruption case being revealed.”
Klemola clarifies that there is no internationally agreed definition of corruption. Every country can create its own definition. “The word corruption doesn’t even appear in Finnish legislation. It’s also completely missing from party programmes”, she says.
“Transparency Index, which year after year announces Finland as one of the world’s least corrupt nations, does no scientific comparison to reach its conclusion. The measurement of the corruption index is built on expert statements. And because neither the Finnish media or legal system uses the word corruption, the experts draw the conclusion that the phenomenon doesn’t occur here.”
“Court cases that concern fraud, bribery and failures of duty are not considered. But now I’m waiting, with excitement, this autumn’s survey result”.
Kormela believes that that all forms of abuse of power for one’s own gain should be considered as corruption. Kormela goes on to say that “In Finland, the risk of corruption is greater when so many people have multiple positions of power – in politics, business and sport – that they can easily mix up.”
Kormela is suspicious of the entire Transparency Index. She points out that the index shows that Switzerland is side by side with Finland as one of the least corrupt countries in the world whilst many African nations are amongst the most corrupt – yet, many of the corrupt African heads of state almost certainly have their bank accounts in Swiss banks.
Meanwhile…
In other news, Centre party and Kokoomus (national coalition party) have their party conferences in Joensuu and Tampere/Tammerfors respectively over this weekend. The Centre party has perhaps received the most criticism during the election financing scandal.
Centre’s party secretary Jarmo Korhonen, who has been accused of being very much involved with the KMS scandal, defended robustly his position on the opening day yesterday (Friday). He told party delegates that he had been working very hard to get funds for the party – saying he’d been eating sometimes 3 lunches a day and suffering an upset stomach due to drinking so much coffee, all for the good of meeting people interested in donating money to the party funds. This went down well with the Centre party delegates. He claimed that the Social Democrats were the real capitalists, receiving the most financial backing. According to him, Centre also received less money than Kokoomus and were way down in 4th place – “even SFP get more money than us from some fund or other of theirs”.
Many of the delegates assembled in Joensuu blame the “capital city’s media” for blowing up the scandal, according to HBL. The Centre party enjoys the majority of its support from communities in rural, agrarian based Finnish-speaking Finland.
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Saturday 14.6.08 at 13:48
Eastern Promise
Center Party operates outside of the rules of gravity and all other such things. Only there would such a obviously bent politician get cheered. Favoring your friends in decision making IS decision making in the red neck Kepu country.
Monday 16.6.08 at 15:19
JL
Favoring your friends in decision making IS decision making in the red neck Kepu country.
No, it’s not just Kepu. It’s the entire political system of Finland. Note how reluctant the opposition has been to call on the ruling coalition to come clean about election financing. It’s because the left knows that its own dirty laundry can be flaunted in public. Businessmen and companies funding politicians in return for various favors has always been “business as usual” in Finland. For example, do you think that apartments and houses in Finland are more expensive than anywhere else in Europe for no particular reason? Or could the close co-operation between politicians, contractors, and landowners have anything to do with it?
The political elite seems to be completely helpless in face of this scandal. This is because they cannot blame a few “rotten apples”, as everybody can see that the corruption is widespread. There are only two ways of dealing with: the political elite can either completely revamp the system to eliminate the inherent corruption, or they can more or less sweep it all under the carpet and continue as if nothing happened. I suspect they will do the latter, as there’s so much at stake.
Tuesday 17.6.08 at 18:57
Jonas
I agree that is all essentially all the parties that are tainted by this scandal. But Korhonen and Centre’s reaction to it is the most jaw-dropping. Blaming it all on the city dwelling media and saying everyone else is worse so that makes us just fine is an unbelievable way of dealing with it. I think keeping sweeping it under the carpet would almost have been preferable. But they should be admitting mistakes and putting forward how they are going to deal with cleaning up their act.
I think that due to this reaction Centre can appear more corrupt but also just due to the shear fact that their strengths are in smaller (i.e. rural) municipalities. Generally smaller municipalities, by their nature, are more prone to ‘dubious’ actions (because everyone knows everyone, fewer top dogs, bigger chance of nepotism, less choice of candidates and politicians equalling a sometimes lower standard of politicians, single party dominance etc). This is true for Sfp also in rural Swedish municipalities where they rule in much the same way way as in hardcore Kepu country (in Swedish-speaking rural areas, Sfp is very much a Swedish-speaking version of Centre in many ways).