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Sacked foreign minister Ilkka Kanerva (Kokoomus national coalition party) has spoken to the newspaper Turun Sanomat about the events that led to his dismissal by his party.

Kanerva criticised Kokoomus party leader Jyrki Katainen for altering his stance over night. Both Katainen and prime minister Matti Vanhanen (centre) has assured that Kanerva had their full trust on several occasions before his sacking. According to Kanerva, Katainen’s decision to fire him undermines Vahanen’s attempts to protect politicians’ private lives and gives a signal to the media that private lives are now fair game.

Kanerva expressed his surprise that his 200 SMS text messages to an erotic dancer have caused such a stir. According to Kanerva, his sacking over such a small affair as text messages is unique in an international context. As an example, Kanerva pointed to the former US president Bill Clinton who was involved in an affair with a low-racked White House worker which he at first denied. Despite this, Clinton stayed in post.

The sacked foreign minister believes that the publication by the gossip magazine Hymy of a selection of his messages is clearly illegal as the constitution guarantees the privacy of all correspondence. However, he has ruled out taking legal action.

Kanerva bitterly said to the newspaper that his life’s work had now gone to waste.

When foreign minister Alexander Stubb (national coalition Kokoomus party) was appointed last week (after scandal hit Ilkka Kanerva’s departure), people wondered how long it would be until Stubb would start talking about his favourite subject, Nato. Stubb has previously been seen as somewhat of a Nato enthusiast.

Well, it seems it hasn’t taken him long at all. In an interview on Yle’s Aamu-tv morning television programme this morning, Stubb claimed that Russia’s stance on any Finnish membership of Nato is unchanged. It’s an opinion that Stubb’s party colleague, the veteran Pertti Salolainen (Kokoomus) who is chairman of the parliament’s international political affairs committee, does not share. Salolainen stated recently that Russia’s opposition on any Georgian or Ukrainian Nato membership would affect Russia’s stance also on Finland. He has said that he thought it would have been easier for Finland to enter Nato without large-scale Russian opposition during Russian president Jeltsin’s time in office. In Salolainen’s view, today’s Russia is again more assertive in its foreign policy concerning its neighbours.

In direct contrast, Stubb thinks that Russia was in fact far more critical of any Nato enlargement in the mid-1990s. He told morning television that he has already had a telephone conversation with his Russian counterpart and that he sees Russia as an opportunity rather than a threat. Stubb said that he thought last week’s Bucharest Nato summit showed that the alliance’s European members were gaining in influence.

Stubb said he wants to renew foreign policy debate in Finland by making it more accessible for the public. As part of this he is considering starting blogging during his foreign minister job.

Stubb’s views on where the decision making power lies within Nato can probably be seen as an effort by him to alter the presentation of Nato in Finnish public opinion, where the alliance is often seen as a body dominated by the United States whose confrontational foreign policy is widely unpopular. If such a view on Nato could take hold, it would no doubt be easier to convince people of the merits of Nato membership. It seems Stubb will continue, at least in a small way, to bring forward his positive views on Nato even in his new job.

Finland’s Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (centre party) has ruled himself out of the 2012 presidential election already. Vanhanen told the newspaper Itä-Savo that he doesn’t want to be president and had already experienced one presidential election (the last one in 2006 where he ran and was eliminated in the first round after coming in third place with 18,6% of the vote). Vanhanen did however state that he was aiming for a third term as prime minister.

This leaves potentially both Centre and the Social Democrats without obvious candidates for the 2012 elections, although it is obviously still a long way off and the SDP will get a new chairman this summer.

Their main rivals, the National Coalition party Kokoomus do however have one obvious candidate, Sauli Niinistö. Niinistö came second in 2006 with 48,2% of the vote in the second round against Tarja Halonen. This was a respectable result considering highly popular Halonen got 49,4% in the first round and before that took place, people were tipping the election to be already settled in one round. Since then, Niinistö has been elected to the Finnish parliament in 2007’s election, getting the most personal votes ever in a parliamentary election, and become speaker of parliament. He’s seen to be popular and easily the favourite right now to become Kokoomus’ first president since Paasikivi who left office in 1956. Still, if a week is a long time in politics, 4 years is surely an eternity.

It seems sacked foreign minister Ilkka Kanerva (Kokoomus national coalition party) is having some communications problems in getting his formal resignation to the president’s office.

The Foreign Ministry, from which Kanerva is officially on sick leave since Monday, did announce that Kanerva would be sending his formal resignation request letter by fax.  It’s too late for it to be posted by mail. However, according to Hufvudstadsbladet, the fax plan has failed on the grounds of technical problems. Instead, a car will collect Kanerva’s resignation letter from his home in Turku/Åbo tomorrow morning and drive it to the president of the republic’s office.

Perhaps he would have found it easier to send a text? Then again, given recent events, perhaps Tarja Halonen doesn’t want to give him her number.

The official appointment by President Halonen of Alexander Stubb (Kokoomus) as Finland’s new foreign minister will happen during the government-presidential session this morning at 11.00. Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt (from Kokoomus’ Swedish equivalent, the Moderates) will fly to meet Stubb already this afternoon in Helsinki/Helsingfors.

The erotic dancer who was on the receiving end of sacked foreign minister Ilkka Kanerva’s (national coaltion Kokoomus party) 200+ text messages has sad that she is distressed to be stamped as the one who is behind Kanerva’s sacking.  In an interview with the newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet she described the situation as lacking in justice.

“I am sad,  angry and sorrowful. What has happened is injust and wrong. I had no relationship with Ilkka Kanerva. He wrote humorous text messages to me. It’s got nothing to do with sexual harassment. There are no reasons for forcing Kanerva to go.”

Turkiainen will not take responsibility for the chain of events that began when she gave the text messages to the gossip magazine Hymy.

“I couldn’t influence what happened later even if I tried to forbid the publication of the text messages. Kanerva can take a part of the blame himself. He lied and changed his version the whole time. First he denied that the SMS messages existed, then he said that they were work-related. It would have been better to admit that it was all a question of innocent flirting from the beginning.”

For Johanna Turkiainen the past weeks have been tough. She has received many threats, “The e-mails and text messages I’ve received from normal people have been horrible and threatening. People are very angry and accuse me of ruining Kanerva’s carrier.  It’s unpleasant”

The relationship with her partner of 8-years also hangs in the balance, “I love my man and I hope that he forgive me so that we can continue our relationship. Should that be the case, I can probably get over this situation, but if he leaves me it’s going to be difficult. Then I’ll move to the USA and commit myself to a dance carrier there.”, says Turkiainen to Hbl.

Turkiainen says that she regrets allowing the magazine Hymy get hold of the messages, “I’ve paid the money back to Hymy and I’ve not accepted the offered trips or bribes,” explains Turkiainen.

Those that have been following Finnish news will have heard of the recent headlines involving Finland’s foreign minister Ilkka Kanerva (a member of the conservative Kokoomus national coalition party) and his 200 or so text messages to erotic dancer Johanna Tukiainen. Up until now, Kanerva has managed to retain the trust of his party leader finance minister Jyrki Katainen and of Centre-party prime minister Matti Vanhanen (who has said it is an internal matter for Kokoomus). However, it seems he could yet find himself in more stormy water.

The gossip magazine ‘Hymy’ has annouced it will publish some of the text messages that Kanerva sent to Tukiainen in its next edition (which comes out next Wednesday). According to news reports, Tukiainen attempted in a last minute court action to prevent Hymy from publishing the SMS messages. The court has however declined to do so. Hymy claims, according to Hufvudstadsbladet, that the SMS messages should be published so that the truth about their contents can stop the current rumours about what they might contain. Therefore, in Hymy’s opinion, the publication is to the advantage of Kanerva.

Hymy’s editor-in-chief Esko Tulusto said, “As far as I’m aware, the constitution is still in force and the constitution forbids censorship in advance.”. He declined to comment on the contents of the SMS messages other than to say that the magazine would not be taking a position on whether or not Kanerva should resign.

The publication of Kanerva’s SMS messages will again return the spotlight to Finland’s foreign minister for all the wrong reasons. Naturally, politicians must be entitled to have private lives. This is, however, not Kanerva’s first SMS scandal involving women. Kanerva may yet find that his position becomes untenable - if everything he does in his post becomes overshadowed by the gossip surrounding his text messages, he simply may not be able to get on with his job of promoting Finland’s foreign policy. It’s also doubtful Kokoomus would tolerate an even more prolonged period of “bad news” stories surrounding one of their most prominent government ministers. In short, Kanerva is still very much skating on thin ice.