Category Archive

I have neglected this blog during the past week. Mainly because I’ve been busy at the office and that the weather has been so good; my free time has been occupied by putting it to good use. A lot is also on the go in Finnish current affairs. Here’s a quick summary of some of the ‘high’lights of the recent days.

Party funding scandal, Vanhanen’s Centre party in the spotlight

Parliamentarians, but most especially the government and more especially the Centre Party, are in turmoil due to campaign financing scandals. There’s so much to say on this that I can’t possibly manage it in this brief entry. And a new revelation seems to come out every day. Most of the worst news is, as said, surrounding the Centre party and financial grants given by a mysterious organisation called Kehittyvien Maakuntien Suomi (KMS, very liberally translated to “Finnish association for districts under development”) backed by various financiers - mainly businessmen (It should be said that KMS also gave grants to a much more limited number of members of other parties than Centre). There are various stories going about - was KMS founded in the office of the Centre party secretary Jarmo Korhonen? How much did prime minister Matti Vanhanen (centre) know about it? Did KMS money influence decisions made by the politicians who received it? Why is so much secrecy involved? Was it Centre party officials managing KMS’ bank account?

Frankly, it’s exhausting keeping up with it all! But in any case, Prime Minister Vanhanen is looking weakened and this morning’s Borgåbladet even reports that one betting company (Unibet) now thinks there’s a higher chance he will have resigned before the end of June than still be in the job on 1 July. As for now, he’s flown off to do a tour of Asia (where he amongst other things gave a strange speech in Seoul where he drawed upon the similarities of the Finnish and Korean languages). One amusing reader comment on the website of Vasabladet suggested that it might be best if he didn’t fly back. The bad news is that all Finnish politicians are looking less trustworthy amongst the electorate because of this scandal. It’s not good for encouraging the people’s participation in the democratic process when that process looks corrupt and broken. Expect new election financing laws already before the autumn as politicians try to regain the people’s trust.

Jutta Urpilainen is new Social Democrat leader

The Social Democrats elected a new party chairman yesterday at their conference in Hämeenlinna/Tavestehus. Jutta Urpilainen from Karleby in Österbotten becomes the SDP’s first female leader. In the second round of the party’s election, SDP delegates gave Urpilainen 218 votes, defeating former foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja who got 132 (both pictured). The choice of a youthful female leader (Urpilainen was born in 1975) will make it easier for SDP to change its image and present itself as a fresh alternative. Municipal elections are coming up this autumn and with Centre and Kokoomus faring worse (or at least getting worse publicity) in the above mentioned financial scandals, SDP should be looking to a good result. If the economic situation becomes more unstable - even more so.

Sfp party day in Åbo

The Swedish Peoples Party (SFP) holds its annual conference - the ‘party day’ - today in Åbo (Turku), in the shadow of the financing scandal (and indeed SDP’s leadership election). Sfp politicians and delegates will be hoping that they can avoid being tarred with the scandal brush in so much as is possible. KMS only gave money to one Sfp member during the last election campaign. That was party leader Stefan Wallin, who received 10 000 euro. However, he has said this he passed this on to Sfp’s general campaign fund for his Åboland constituency. Sfp has had its own mini-KMS type scandal. It was revealed recently that an almost equally mysterious organisation, Stiftelsen för ett tvåspråkigt Finland (’The Foundation for a Bilingual Finland’) provides a large amount of Sfp’s monetary resources. This foundation sourced its money from business leaders and Svenska kulturfonden (The Swedish Cultural Fund). This has been met with far, far less negative publicity than the KMS/Centre affair, largely because it was no great surprise to anyone that Svenska kulturfonden was providing money to Sfp. It was, if you like, a “well known secret.” When this came to light, Sfp party secretary Ulla Achrén immediately took responsibility for how these funds were shared out within Sfp and to members seeking election. This rather took the heat out of any possible scandal - particularly as her ‘trust’ is harder to call into question, as she is (unlike most other party secretaries in other Finnish political parties) is simply an employee of Sfp - rather than the holder of an elected office.

One of the main issues for this year’s conference will be energy - and in particular nuclear power. The party has indicated, in the context of climate change, that it wants to relook at its negative stance towards the building of further nuclear power stations in Finland. Members are however divided, so a lively debate can be expected.

Sfp will look to recent opinion surveys for a source of optimism; Hufvudstadsbladet reports that they have shown that support for Sfp has significantly strengthened amongst Swedish-speaking young people. It also shows that support from the wider Swedish-speaking population has improved slightly (to over 67%), at the expense of the SDP and Greens.

This past weekend, the current SDP (Social Democratic Party) chairman Eero Heinäluoma startled his party by announcing that he would not be standing for reelection as his party’s chairman this summer.

Now, the SDP didn’t do well at the last parliamentary election, ending up out of government in third behind the centre-right National Coaltion party and the Centre party. Heinäluoma has said he takes the responsibility for this. Some also say Heinäluoma and the wider SDP have not used golden opportunities such as the recent TEHY nurses wage conflict and current discussions around the state’s company ownership policies to put forward their opposition to the current government’s policies. To put it bluntly, SDP’s profile needs to be raised.

But who to do this? Could it be the SDP’s first woman leader or will the old veteran Erkki Tuomioja finally get his dream job. Yle rung round SDP board members, and it turns out their favourites are Tarja Filatov and Tuomioja. With politics as they are now - all the more image driven, could it be a good move for the SDP to use the chance to renew their image and put a younger leader in. With Filatov, they could perhaps strike that cord. Sadly, 2008 might just be too late for the veteran Tuomioja to finally make it. It would be hard for him to freshen up the party’s image.