Finland’s results in the European election bucked a continent-wide trend of rising support for parties on the outer fringe of right-wing politics, with the Left Alliance and the National Coalition winning big at the expense of the nationalist Finns Party.
Leftist leader Li Andersson received more votes than any other candidate has ever received in a European election.
The Finns are all too aware of what far-right government means, they’re living next to it, and it’s threatening their very existence.
Congratulations on the Fins voting against barbarism! Here’s to hoping the upcoming election here in the USA follows suit, and continues to reject reactionary nationalism.
The Finns are all too aware of what far-right government means, they’re living next to it
They’re living in it. The existing Finnish government was already on a hard-right tilt over the last ten years, and this election has resulted in a countercyclical backlash.
This isn’t a bunch of Finns saying “We don’t want to be like Russia.” It’s a bunch of Finns saying the National Coalition / True Finns suck fucking ass for cannibalizing their public sector in order to inflate their police sectors in an anti-migrant freak out.
The country has dipped into a recession following a slew of big cuts to social spending and economic lag caused by the war. And people justifiably don’t like that shit.
Oh, I didn’t know this! Thank you for that information. I hope the new government can materiality improve the lives of the public.
Fingers crossed. But it wouldn’t be the first time the ratchet of politics blocked left-wing reforms while turning effortlessly to the right.
This also gives me hope that after a couple of years of far-right governance, these people will end up losing and more centrist politicians will be in charge again. Making this shit temporary in Europe.
They also have a (lesser than the neighbor) far-right government
I didn’t know that, thank you for informing me! Hopefully the new government can succeed in undoing any damage done by the previous government.
The USA first needs a serious left wing party for that to be possible.
Some comments have pointed out that Finland already had a right-wing government going into this election, and I’ll admit that I was entirely unaware of this.
Again, I congratulate the Finnish public on rejecting right-wing and authoritarian politics, especially after having to suffer under it at home.
Again, I congratulate the Finnish public on rejecting right-wing and authoritarian politics, especially after having to suffer under it at home.
If only
From the same country that gave us Linux, inspired Middle Earth’s Quenya (noble Elvish) language, and showed us how to properly manage prison reform.
My question: why are the Finnish always so awesome?
P.S. Contrary to what one failed former conspiracy-addled political “leader” suggested, the Finnish do not rake their forests.
When all people are cared for, no one turns bigot. This becomes a vertuous circle. “Simple as that”. Meanwhile France worked hard to release the kraken
Well, despite all the good work and against common sense, surprisingly many still turn bigot. But much less so, luckily.
Seems like some people just can’t be content and happy, no matter what. And you have to direct that anger or bitterness or whatever to something. Too often it’s hate.
Soooo you are saying that we should take care of our people by giving them guns, right?
the Finnish do not rake their forests
but they have turned it into a running gag
Seems like it would be a great quip when someone’s being an ass. “Go rake a forest.”
Allow me to gas Finland up a bit more. They’re higher than Germany in terms of innovation (triadic patents per capita), they have semi-democratically owned grocery stores with 90% of the country being a member/co-owner, they have 60% union density and a Ghent system (like Sweden, unlike Norway), their housing prices were among the few in Europe falling - after the government started their Housing First initiative and built social housing for the poor, their education system being so good (despite being relaxed unlike e.g. Singapore) and state-funded instead of private… life is pretty good in Finland.
But i did vacuum clean it the other day
I think it really goes back through history. Finland was a possession of Sweden and then Russia. The nobility would have spoken either of those languages depending on who was in charge, and ethnic Finns were essentially pawns for the larger powers, and the finnish language wasn’t even written down much.
This changed when Russia started to crack down on Finnish culture, leading to a surge in pro-Finnish sentiment. People even changed their names from Swedish versions to finnish versions, and went from using “Christian” names to names from finnish mythology or culture. Actually, it’s somewhat similar to how black Americans changed naming conventions in the Civil rights era. The very concept of finnish-ness was somewhat of a working class concept. This, combined with a similar law of jante type belief meant there was and is much more of a focus on the collective good than in other countries.
During the Russian revolution, a Civil War erupted between left wing and right wing, with the right wing wanting a German aristocratic monarchy over finland. The right wing actually won, but it was very short lived because Germany lost WW1 right aftwards, and a liberal democracy was formed. Finland was super poor, but started to build itself up as it’s own country.
When WW2 rolled around, most people are familiar with the Winter War where they held their ground against a Russian invasion. Most people aren’t as familiar with the Continuation War against Russia, where they (with the support of germany) continued to fight against Russia, or the Lapland war, where they actually had to fight against Germany to kick them out of the country. The Germans actually used scorched earth on finland as they retreated, knowing they were losing WW2.
After all of that, a huge swath of finland was destroyed by the Germans, or annexed by the Russians, leaving many homeless. Finland had to provide for those people, so homes were rebuilt rapidly throughout the country. Since they were in the soviet sphere of influence, but they weren’t a Warsaw pact country, they didn’t get any assistance from the eastern bloc (and they actually had to pay reparations as an axis country). They were also not included in the Marshall plan that helped provide recovery to western Europe.
They survived as a people by taking care of each other, and they are very proud of that. If you go to a Finnish museum, next to works of art and science, you’ll see things like the baby box, or other displays about the establishment of the welfare state. Many countries have a welfare system, but treat it like a dirty secret, while they celebrate what they were able to accomplish.
One last thing I think is really cool is that they are not afraid to experiment with policies. Many governments will do little trials of policy here and there, but not many go to the point of actually doing scientifically rigorous studies.
I feel extremely informed, thank you!
Don’t forget the music! Nightwish, Ensiferum, Finntroll, and many more…
Teräsbetoni
Having a population of 5.6 M probably makes a lot of problems more manageable.
Unfortunately it’s the opposite here in France and I’m devastated.
Congratulations to the Finns!!!
Well hopefully your population is intelligent enough to see through the lies after the populists take in to office. It’s usually when their incompetence shines right through as they’ll just start making excuses and keep blaming the opposition for their failures. It’s also the point where they usually start breaking most of the promises they made during the elections or while they where in the opposition.
The French also have history of not so peaceful protests so the people in the ivory towers need to take that in to account.
Well that didn’t work out for Germany. However, maybe the most recent scandals of some German AFD representatives did prevent them from receiving even more votes. Nevertheless, the AFD hasn’t received any recognition for its beneficial contributions in the parliament thus far. Typically, it involves strange remarks or overall misconduct. But their overall propaganda seems to be still very effective.
I like Li Andersson’s three major goals. Seriously… How could this be wrong for certain people. I don’t get it
to end poverty, to make the world more equal and to solve the climate crisis
Fuc*ing leftits with their positive, political goals. Disgusting /s
You see them as positive goals, other people see them as advantages to loose. To foreigners, to climate protection, to „lazy“ people. They have a privilege they want to keep.
BSW taking 6% out of box (way more in the East) got to count for something.
Thanks for the hopeful message.
I have no doubt the French far-right would fail miserably like every other EU far-right government, and I wouldn’t bother too much in other circumstances but those suckers are Putin’s friends and the last thing I want to see happening is the end of Ukraine’s support.
Macron just dismissed the government, and we’re up for new elections in two weeks. There’s a good chance that for the first time in the French Republic History we don’t have a single leftist voice at the government.
We are famous for our protests indeed, but with a far-right government cops will just feel allowed to do their worst, and we might reach chaotic levels of violence.
Anyway, thanks again for your message. We’re not there yet and I need to blow off some steam.
The French also have history of not so peaceful protests so the people in the ivory towers need to take that in to account.
They do, which is why they’ve invested so heavily in state police forces and surveillance technologies. France runs tight behind the UK in terms of over-policing of potential dissidents (re: poc, college kids, community activists) and cribs a lot of their techniques from the US and Israel.
Oh no they didn’t copy from the UK, it’s a thing going back straight to Vichy France. Have a look at the biography of this character.
Woof.
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If it does though, you down to fight?
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Nice. I’ll see you there, G. ✊🏼
Does fighting online count?
“Record result” doesn’t even begin to describe how hard they shattered their previous number. They went from 7% last election to 17%. Left Alliance has never seen numbers like this as far as I know.
Yep. From a minor party to second place, with a small campaign and core leftism program. Li has been the straight shooter calling bullshit out for years and suddenly it worked. Absolutely amazing
The Swedish green party also kicked down our far right party down the ranks.
Now this concerns me.
Why would the Nazis losing be bad?
Because econazis are winning.
This warms my hearth.
I’m actual a member of a small leftwing party in my own country and (having lived 2 decades abroad and seen other political realities and even been a member of the Green Party in Britain) have concluded they suffer exactly from the problem that well entrenched leadership are not “straight shooters calling bullshit out”, and instead their style of discourse “avoids giving offense”, sounding far too much (IMHO) like the mainstream supposedly-left party we have here and leaving an impression about the party (to those who aren’t tribalists predisposed to support and believe in anything the party’s leadership says) that they’re just another group looking to suckle from the tit of the state.
I think the problem in my party is due to the leadership being a very uniform group of 30-something well-off scions of the Middle Class (which, in a country that until the revolution of 74 that overthrew Fascism had very little Middle class, shows that they’re hardly coming “from the people”) who got to the leadership mainly due to nepotism (often being the sons and daughters of party founders) or by going to the same shcools and being similar to each other and talking the same talk as the rest - i.e. cronysm - and who, from the explanations I got from one of the party’s members of parliament for certain anti-Democratic practices inside the party, see themselves as superior to the rest of the members of the party (which probably explains why they listen - if at all - very little to the rest of the party and seem unable to change even after losing between half and two thirds of the vote).
So I hope I can use the example of the Left in Finland to internally push for a kind of change in leadership and discourse, towards one much more broadly representative of people in this country and who is willing to talk about how parts of the machine are broken and need replacing (and do so anchored on a proactivelly tought through vision for the future, rather than the mere reactivelly “complain about things blowing up after they blew up” so common in my country) rather than the current mild-mannered, frustrating reactive discourse that amounts to little more than “the car is fine, it’s just some some screws that need tightenning”.
“straight shooters calling bullshit out”, and instead their style of discourse “avoids giving offense”,
I want to highlight that Andersson is still respectful and not offensive. The callouts are done honestly
Totally agree that leftism in a global sense needs to shift communication towards a more active and hopeful future. Everyone else is just sticking to the status quo or worse.
I’ll give you an example:
I would like to see more pointing out that most members of Parliament, government ministers and heads of city halls from the two main parties are also “housing investors” so it makes absolute sense that they voted for all kinds of measures over the last decade that pumped up even higher the gigantic house bubble in Portugal, which is making young people in Portugal stay with their parent’s until their mid 30s and, in a country with one of the most aged populations in Europe, delaying childbirth and having fewers children, and even to leave the country by their hundreds of thousands each year.
Instead all we get is something around “house prices are too high that’s bad for the young” and only started getting it recently when even the Middle Class started hurting - I mean, the guys at the mainstream parties also say that at this point because it’s got the a level were it’s well beyond undeniable. I mean, I moved back to Portugal 5 years ago from the UK and it was already painfully obvious to me that there as a massive housing bubble and the politicians in power were passing measures to pump it up even further and faster.
Similarly the non-mainstream Left seldom talks about Corruption and the systemic structural reasons for it (from a Judicial system which is slow, underinvested in and partly subverted by the dominant political parties, to a widespread nationwide culture of Nepotism and Cronyism), not least because the party with the biggest problem in that domain at the moment is the supposedly leftwing mainstream one with whom these parties aimed to make a cohalition in the last Parliamentary elections. Refraining from overtly and unwavering standing by the principle that politicians abusing the powers they’ve been delegated to by voters in unacceptable no matter the party of those politicians at the time when the far-right was (with tremendous hypocrisy) was making a lot of noise about it, just made those leftwing parties look like either accomplices, unprincipled and/or just looking to feed of the tit of the state like the rest.
(It also doesn’t help that in my experience those leftwing parties also internally suffer massivelly from Cronyism and Nepotism)
IMHO to be a proper leftwing party you don’t really need to go around calling other people assholes, you just need to point out that many if not most of the greatest problems that affect all society weren’t born from immaculate conception: they are the result of choices and actions for personal gain of people entrusted by voters with powers that can impact everybody else. Merelly “This is bad and needs changing” from the mouths of a politician with no pointing of fingers doesn’t mean much because they all say that when things get to the point of being undeniable, even the very same politicians that caused that problem in the first place and such stuff only real works for tribalists who are already convinced that “the leaders of my Party are trustworthy and it’s those other people who are not” (which has the curious effect of making most party members thinks those speeches are amazing and insightful when comming from those they see as they leaders, without noticing the deep similarity with what is said by the leaders of other parties, even while outsiders and non-tribalists are hearing everybody saying the same stuff and thus not trusting any one group more than another and even thinking “they’re all the same”).
Let me guess, Portugal and Livre?
No.
Livre are Liberals cosplaying as Lefties.
In a genuine fight for Equality you don’t go around segregating people by identities and deeming some more deserving to fight for than others because of the identity you think that they belong to: you fight for everybody who is being treated unfairly, ideally going after that which is causing greatest pain first.
Split people by the genetics they were born with and treating them differently based on that is not the path to Equality and Fairness, it’s just a different kind of Inequality and Unfairness, so those doing such dividing and segregated treatment are either fighting for something else - say, “everybody should be free to do what they want with consenting adults”, which is fine, but at times incompatible with the core leftwing principle of “the best possible life for the greatest number”, especially when it comes to money (were the latter principle would go against the Freedom of some to accumulate as much wealth as they want), so that’s not Leftwing, that’s just Liberalism - or they’re tribalist fad followers, who don’t think when it comes to politics.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Livre end up turning out to be just as much a bunch of self-serving assholes seeking “jobs for the boys” by ridding a fashionable political strain imported from elsewhere as Portugal’s newest “Green Party” cosplayers, PAN, turned out to be.
I’ll read your comment in more detail later but who were you talking about then?
O Bloco.
If you look at the leadership they’re incredibly uniform (almost all 30-somethings, from well off origins, either there because mommy or daddy were middle class leftwingers during the Fascist days - which I can respect, whilst at the same time thinking says nothing about their childrens’ qualities or values - or because they’re mates with such people). Unsurprisingly they all sound like betinhos (soft spoken middle-class types constantly signaling their social status in language, dress and manners) and do not at all come across as competent or even with any breadth of life experience (plenty never experienced or did anything other than Politics, a characteristic they share with people of the same age in the two mainstream political parties).
I mean, it’s fine to be like that, it’s just not fine when a politicial party which is supposed to fight for and represent all kinds of people is so narrow in the original social strata, age, life experience and universities frequented (including actually having frequented one) of those who lead it, and hence their way of thinking and the kind of things they’re aware of, not to mention that highly uniform social environments are invariably the result of people selecting each other by similarity and friendship (i.e. cronyism) not merit, since merit comes in all shapes, forms, genders, ages and origins and hence selection by it naturally yields a lot more variety in a group.
(There are a ton of blindspots for any group of people who are highly uniform and that problem due to the uniformity in the leadership of the Block has been easilly exploited by the mainstream “leftwing” party and even the far right in Portugal in the last 2 elections)
As somebody who spent his young adult years in The Netherlands, I have very different values in terms of openness and much stricter Democratic expectations than the shit that dominates the party, were I’ve seen my share of systematic undemocratic behaviours and treating mechanisms meant for free and democratic choice including actual votes as nothing more than “formalities”. Also, having lived and been in politics in Britain I have a keen ability to detect the parroting of the performative “leftwing” ideas from the fake leftwing wing parties there (LibDems, New Labour, equivalent to the Democrats in the US) which oh-so-often seems to be repeated by local lefties who being too unwordly to understand the context and trying to follow the fashion of the “left” in those countries, parrot neoliberal stuff they read in English-language social media.
It’s very frustrating because I originally thought they were a thinking Left.
I’m not sure I agree
For one Bloco’s majority of votes comes from exactly the opposite of what you say they are. I.e. lower class and less educated people.
I don’t think they have the image of being “betinhos”, quite the opposite. Majority of Betos vote IL, Agrobetos somehow vote chega, and betos who lean left and actually care about social issues now vote Livre. Some of them also voted PAN but fortunately less and less.
The view I have of Bloco is that they are more on the woke warrior side and a bit too much sometimes. The whole, I am more knowledgeable than you is very present in IL and in a way also in Rui Tavares.
Catarina Martins is one of the more empathetic politicians we have in Portugal atm. The Mortagua sisters may have a well off background but they have proven their work countless times and many times outside of Bloco. Marisa Matias and José Gusmão are both almost 50 and no where close to your description of “elite”.
But I guess your opinion is just as valid. For what it’s worth I actually joined them very recently but so far haven’t seen much of anything (apart from disorganization).
Thqnk you Finland!!!
Being next in line to be invaded by Russia helps keep the insane voices down I guess.
Most people I know are afraid of foreigners stealing their peace and property and enslave their daughters and shit like this.
It’s people that prosper so long they don’t know any real threat and keep imagining one. Queue the far right stoking those fears.
The fins got some real problems and it unifies them.
Maybe two things; people see what the far right is currently messing up in the Finnish government, and Russia (& China) focused on Germany and France so the election was cleaner. Sweden’s Left also had a huge jump
I don’t think that’s it, many countries with neighboring hostilities still suck.
Guys.
Finn here.
42 % turnout.
We still have a massive problem with rising nationalism and general right-wing rhetoric, don’t kid yourselves. It’s just that those morons don’t think EU elections matter.
Always good to have some insider info
ok but can you share the trick to keep the dicks from voting?
We could have a lot of nice things (like you’ve already got!) if we could, uh, drive the bus…
Hey finns, will you take me in again, like you did during Erasmus? Pretty please? I do like saunas, lakes, woods, Salmiakki and metal so I should fit right in, right?
Just one question before we let you in: how do you pronounce “sauna”?
Like a normal person, so like it’s written.
Excellent.
Sauna will be ready by six o’clock. You bring the beer, I have sausages.
Ok, you are welcome, just show this post on the border control and they give you Finnish passport
Kiitos!
You’re kind, since you didn’t ask him to pronounce something like yö
Or translate “kuusi palaa” into english.
Ha! My mother tongue uses unlauts.
Unlike Finnish.
Sauna Perkele.
Also did Erasmus there, but I’m not a fan of salmiakki so I hope that my swearing will compensate for that.
You are allowed by law to replace salmiakki with koskenkorva.
Will you accept a fan of mämmi?
No! Thats disgusting, go away.
Sure
Let’s do that
Banya.
I might have believed you until you went too far claiming you like Salmiakki.
I’m moving to Finland.
I hope you know Finnish already or are really good with languages because it’s completely unrecognizable to people who speak most other European languages. My dad went to Helsinki in the 90s and said the only signs he could recognize were ones which had international logos like McDonald’s.
This is (according to a search) “I love you” in Finnish: minä rakastan sinua.
But yes, it sounds like a very nice place to live.
I’m familiar with the language, I just don’t know it. But Finland is bilingual, as there is also a lot of
NorwegianSwedish spoken and many signs are inNorwegianSwedish too. I have less issues understandingNorwegianSwedish. Myself I’m Dutch, I’ve been to Finland several times. I’m not even going to try to learn the language, it’s really hard. But in major cities they speak English.Edit: I didn’t remember correctly the second language
A finnish person here. Our second language is swedish not norwegian :-). Aside from that, it is true that many signs etc. are written in both finnish and swedish. People working in public sector are also supposed to know swedish.
Outside of few swedish speaking areas you are better off using english as it’s more widely spoken by the general population.
Ah thanks for the correction. It has been a while since I’ve been there, I clearly didn’t remember correctly.
I just remembered that my dad said that about the same trip. That he was able to get around the city because pretty much everyone spoke English, so they could just help him out. The signage was the issue for him.
This was back in 1989 and, just by coincidence, this morning I found a postcard he sent me from Leningrad, because he got permission to take the train there from Helsinki. He wrote that he hoped one day I would learn about Peter the Great and visit the beautiful city he founded. Always the professor. Zero for two, unfortunately. I know basically nothing about Peter the Great and, even though the name St. Petersburg/Petrograd should be a clue, I didn’t even know he founded it.
Is it not Swedish, rather than Norwegian?
Yes it is swedish that is the second official language in finland :)
I fixed it, my bad :)
But yes, it sounds like a very nice place to live.
It gets a bit cold in the winter.
I just looked at the temperatures and honestly, it doesn’t get much colder than it gets here in Indiana and it doesn’t get as horribly hot either.
Besides, give it 10 years and climate change will make the Baltic coast feel like the French Riviera.
Winter is the nice season in Finland, the other one is swamp season.
Cold is fine, you just wear more clothes. The darkness from November to February is worse. Nothing really fixes that.
Good to see a country buck the conservative trend going around lately.
Well I don’t think we really have, honestly.
It’s just that the inbred racists who are all too common don’t think these elections mattered.
Yeah. 42% turnout.
Putin will be happy, as now Andersson will be replaced in the finnish parliament by a Putin loyalist Johannes Yrttiaho, as Andersson can’t sit on both parliaments by law.
If you didn’t know, there are many Putin loyalists in the finnish Left Alliance, working as an internal opposition faction against Andersson’s faction.
One of the rules is to assume every group is infiltrated by fascists
My god I want to emigrate over there so bad.
I’m quite curious if this was due to leftwing parties changing the way they talk and going back to politics anchored on principles or if it was something else.
In my own country (Portugal) mainstream supposedly-left are soft neolibs, then there are the Communists (sadly mere slogan parroters invariably putting Party above Principle and hence amongst other things supporters of Putin) and the “thinking” Left who are quite out of touch middle class scions of the middle class (well intended-ish but societally ignorant people who were born with a silver spoon on their mouths and live in a very local - in a country were half the population is emigrated, almost none have actually lived abroad - bubble of relative priviledge) whose style of presentation is the same as the politicians from the “supposedly-left mainstream party” and who have copied the liberal take on Equality (from America, a country that pretty much only has hard-right and far-right, so it’s hardly a leftwing “equality for all” take) rather than the principled, identity-agnostic take on Equality. Also they obcess about the far-right, in practice helping them grow (it’s a well known phenomenon in Propanda that if a Party is constantly talked about by others, even if only to criticise them, they get perceived as important and end up growing). Unsurprisingly the entire mainstream is losing votes just like everywhere else, the alternative Left has recently collapsed to half the size it one was and only the far right is growing (which in my country is one ultra-neolib party and a fascist one).
It would be great if the Left in Finland had found a solution for this that’s culturally-agnostic and hence applies all over Europe directly, rather than be dependent on the kind of cultural factors that take the 4 decades or so these things usually take to get to Portugal from Northern Europe.
Finland has two major left parties: SDP (social democratic party), which is the more center leaning party. Then there is left-wing party, which is more to left. The more left one won now big, and it is uncommon for them to be one of the big winners.
We also have communist party here, and liberal party, but those are really small. Communist got 2 828 votes in total.
be more like norway and finland and less like sweden
Sweden’s Left got a new seat as well
Wow they are so resistant to the so called “right wing” putinist degeneration.
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