Finland’s Parliamentary Election 2023 Coverage: Finland Veers Right; Left-Wing Leader, ‘I’m Pissed Off Like a Small Animal’; PM Marin to Step Down as SDP Leader
FINLAND HAS VOTED.
We followed Finland’s election night closely. Here’s our reportage.
Text and photographs: TONY ÖHBERG/FINLAND TODAY
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Annika Saarikko, the chairwoman of the Centre Party, is describing her feelings to NCP leader Petteri Orpo at the election night in Little Parliament on April 2, 2023. Photograph: TONY ÖHBERG/FINLAND TODAY
“Onko Orpoa näkynyt?” asked a young man in his 20s.
“Sorry, do you speak English?” replied an older guy, maybe a restaurant worker but more likely one of the international reporters of the dozens covering the elections on the spot.
“Where is Orpo, The Boss?” the young man repeated his question in English.
It appeared that Petteri Orpo, the chairman of the National Coalition Party (NCP), had already left the crowded building of restaurant Botta in Helsinki’s Etu-Töölö district located a stones-throw away from the Parliament Building.
Botta is a three-story historic entertainment complex built in 1912 — known for its student parties in the ‘70s and for hosting a wide array of musical performances from jazz to pop —, and today a place in high-demand for Little Christmas parties and political press conferences, a hub offering food, drinks and karaoke. On Sunday night it served as the base for the NCP’s election party where some attendants waved gigantic cardboard faces of their party leader, and their lapel pins that featured the NCP slogan “The Heart is on the Right.,” shined under the spotlights much like their shoes.
It made sense that Orpo was already gone. He had already spoken to his cheering supporters (“Do you know what? It. Was. A. Big. Win!), he had received a hundred hugs and pats on the back. The election day had been a thriller, and the clock was approaching midnight while the last few remnants of the flock of around 50 international reporters were filing away their stories to Europe and Asia in the dim-lit backroom with nothing but stale coffee to drink.
And Orpo was hungry.
He was spotted on the local burger stand in his long, dark overcoat, eating a long sandwich filled with bratwurst sausage and roasted onion with barbeque sauce on top. He was smiling with his wife, answering silly questions from the media while they captured snapshots of him chewing the sandwich that would be named after him (Orvon oivallus. Orpo’s Epiphany.) Silently, he was likely reflecting on the results of the elections: NCP received 20.8% of the vote and took 48 seats in the Parliament. (They gained 10 seats they did not previously hold.)
Petteri Orpo (NCP) gave an election update to the international media. Photograph: TONY ÖHBERG/FINLAND TODAY
NCP is well-known for its center-right politics, and the second place in the elections was taken by an even more far-right group, The Finns Party. They got 20.1% of the vote and 46 seats in the Parliament. (They gained seven seats.)
The Social Democratic Party (SDP) came a close third getting 19.9% of the vote and taking 43 seats in the Plenary Hall. (They gained 3 seats.)
The Centre Party ended up fourth, taking 11.3% of the vote, losing 8 seats.
In total, Finland voted to elect 200 MPs to Parliament.
“I’m pissed off like a small animal.”
This is was what the leader of the Left Alliance Party, Li Andersson, said at her group’s election party at Ääniwalli club, at the outskirts of the city center in the middle of an industrial area in Vallila district. The Left Alliance became the biggest loser of the elections by scraping up 7.1% of the vote and losing 5 seats.
The Greens did not do much better: they gathered 7% of the vote, lost 7 seats.
While the left-wing groups accused their cousin when it comes to similar political values, the SDP, of scheming election tactics called “tactical voting,” and thus luring their supporters to vote for the democrats (who would likely gather more votes) in hope of eliminating a government leadership of the Finns Party and the NCP — a plan that clearly failed — the Left Alliance and the Greens are likely accepting their loss by sitting in the opposition next to the Centre Party for the next four years.
“I’m pissed off like a small animal.”
Li Andersson (Left Alliance) expressed her disappointment to the voting results during the course of the evening. Photograph: TONY ÖHBERG/FINLAND TODAY
At the time this journalist asked the Finns Party leader, Riikka Purra, at a press conference just minutes away before she was about dart off the Little Parliament, the broadcast studio where the media and the party leaders gathered for analyzing the results, Purra said she was not yet ready to speculate whether the Finns Party will accept seats in the government. But should they and the NCP find mutual understanding, goals and respect: It. Just. May. Happen.
If the Finns Party would end up in the government, Purra said that among other things “we are aiming for a much tighter policy regarding immigration.” This was hardly news for anyone present and more likely a rehearsed response to quicken her exit from the building to Kirkkonummi, where her husband, a journalist, had stayed up all night working from a distance.
But Purra’s outing reminded me of one of the last question hours at the Parliament in February where one of the Finns’ Party members, Vilhelm Junnila, after getting permission to speak that with the ongoing elections, the NCP is once again “pretending to be a tough cookie.”
MP Vilhelm Junnila of the Finns Party blamed the NCP for resorting to a clear election bluff during the question hour at the Parliament on February 12, 2023. Photograph: TONY ÖHBERG/FINLAND TODAY
Junnila continued by asking the government: “Remember the time when the former chairman of the NCP, Alexander Stubb, said that Sweden is one the safest countries in the world? Then Interior Minister Petteri Orpo said that speculating the motives of the refugees is considered racism.”
MP Junnila continued by asking:
“Dear government, do you, as I see, through this clear election bluff?”
Maria Ohisalo, the leader of the Greens, seemed as disappointed as her colleague Andersson. Photograph: TONY ÖHBERG/FINLAND TODAY
Riikka Purra, the chairwoman of the Finns Party, was the vote magnet of the whole nation. Photograph: TONY ÖHBERG/FINLAND TODAY
At Botta, I asked the NCP veteran, Ben Zyskowicz, who was assaulted during his campaigning in eastern Helsinki about a week ago in Itäkeskus, by a man who shouted insults relating to Jews and NATO, and who threatened to shove him under the metro and who eventually swept the legs of Zyskowicz causing him to take a hard fall on the pavement only to be later apprehended by the police, what exactly is the current immigration policy of the NCP? (Zyskowicz survived with bruises.)
“We are hoping that immigrants arriving in Finland would be able to better integrate into the Finnish society,” Zyscowicz said.
After a rather lengthy explanation here’s what the NCP, according to Zyskowicz, are hoping to see concerning integrating immigrants:
“We want to see fewer men in their 30s sailing into the country and more refugees coming in based on humanitarian needs.”
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Sanna Marin announced in a press conference that she will step down from her post as SDP chair. She also said that it is unlikely that SDP would be sitting in the next government.
This revelation confirms that Finland will have a new prime minister and likely a right-leaning government in the upcoming months.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Marin submitted her government’s request for resignation to Sauli Niinistö. The president accepted the resignation and asked the government to continue in a caretaker capacity until the new government is appointed.
If all goes well, we will have a new prime minister and government before summer.
Prime Minister Sanna Marin (SDP) submitted her government’s request for resignation to President Sauli Niinistö on Thursday, April, 6, at the official residence of the Finnish president, Mäntyniemi. Photographs: TONY ÖHBERG/FINLAND TODAY / Click to view the gallery.
There was no lack of congratulators at the NCP’s election party at Botta on April 2. Photograph: TONY ÖHBERG/FINLAND TODAY
Source: finlandtoday.fi
