from Green Party Watch 4/23/2011:
Finland Green Party (Green League) received 7.2 per cent of today’s vote. Greens will have 10 seats in the 200 member parliament.
The Finnish Parliament is a unicameral parliament. The 200 elected members have a four year term of office. The Greens finished in 6th place out of 8 major political parties…
That the Green vote dropped is at least half the story.
The True Finns are pretty clearly right-wing populist: anti-immigrant, anti-immigration, and anti-EU. They do favor government intervention in the economy, where it benefits their constituencies. For example, they want greater enforcement of tax collection, believing that the informal economy benefits big corporations and illegal immigrants. Here’s an article on that economic aspect of the program:
http://www.yle.fi/uutiset/news/2011/04/true_finns_to_fight_informal_economy_2537167.html
Europe is a continent not a nation. Many EU member states are “takers” like Greece, Portugal, Italy, Spain etc. Those who pay the bills resent those who run them up. The nations who see their standards of living decline to bailout the nations who can’t say no to any spending program have every right to want out. The Germans must be kicking themselves for tossing away the Deutschemark for the Euro. The Italians, on the other hand, have to be elated to not have the Lira anymore. The Swiss were smart… they told them all to pack sand!
In Europe, that’s called “eurosceptic” and its not particularly right or left wing per se. Maybe “populist” would be the best description.
I have a good friend from Finland so he gave me the briefing on all the parties. The True Finns used to be something of a joke – a protest party at best. They only stayed in Parliament for awhile because they ran a popular boxer in Helsinki. Now it looks like they’ve really found a niche. That’s not really surprising, Finland is a pretty well run country so its not hard to imagine them getting the sense that the rest of Europe is dragging them down.
Cody,
Thanks for the comments and question.
I have not studied Finnish politics. So, I took a post I found at Green Party Watch.
Please feel free to add information or article links in the comments about The True Finns.
(In my quick research, I could not sort things out. Someone said “The True Finns” were a backlash against bailouts, so I thought they were progressives. But, I think they were against some European Union bailouts, which seems potentially right wing. So, for those and other reasons, I felt out of my league to comment further…)
Yet they lost 5 seats in Parliament.
What? The True Finns election successes aren’t worth mentioning?