Elections...

[Edi]

...for a new legislature here were held yesterday, and in case anyone is actually interested (yeah, right, who am I kidding? ), the results are:

Party: seats (1999), percentage of the vote (1999)
Centrist Party: 55 (48), 24.7% (22.4%)
Social Democrats: 53 (51), 24.5% (22.9%)
National Coalition: 40 (46), 18.5% (22.0%)
Leftist Alliance: 19 (20), 9.9% (10.9%)
Green Party: 13 (10), 8.0% (7.3%)
Swedish Folk Party: 8 (11) 4.6% (5.1%)
Christian Democrats: 7 (10), 5.3% (4.2%)
Basic Finns: 3 (1), 1.6% (1.0%)
Other (Åland Islands' quota): 1 (1), 0.5% (0.8%)*

*This seat is one the SFP always gets, because the Åland islands are Swedish speaking

Anyway, what this means is that the Rainbow Coalition government (Social Democrats, National Coalition, Leftists, SFP) of the past eight years (during which first the Christian Dems and later the Greens left the government) is going out and we'll get a centrist led one, which ironically will likely lead to a shift to the left in Finnish politics. And if we get red dirt government (Social Dems and Centrists, which used to be the Agrarian Party), my party (National Coalition, right wing) will be in opposition. It'll be entertaining to watch the negotiations as to who will get to play and who will not, it'll be acrimonious and difficult, but after the dust settles, I'm afraid I'm not going to like what I see all that much...

We could use a more right-leaning government, but alas, it seems very unlikely.

Edi

[von Neufeld]

The good news is that the fundies and the yes sayers lost 3 seats each. I can't stand the yes sayers (Swedish Folk Party), they lacks a clear line on anything and will try to sit in any government at any cost. Why should I vote for them even if I'm Swedish speaking? They do nothing, whine when they loose and throw shit at the Christian Democrafts and Center Party. I had a really hard time choosing a party to vote on. I voted the Greens in lack of better alternatives.

[Knife]

Small question, Edi. Is this one of those instances where your left and your right, are our right and our left? Are you conserned that your conservitive goverment might go more liberal (to use basic terminology) or that your liberal goverment will go more conservative?

Yeah, I know. Dumb American. But I trying to learn.

[von Neufeld]

Small question, Edi. Is this one of those instances where your left and your right, are our right and our left? Are you conserned that your conservitive goverment might go more liberal (to use basic terminology) or that your liberal goverment will go more conservative?

Yeah, I know. Dumb American. But I trying to learn.

It will probably become more leftist economicaliy, but more conservative in values if the Centrists comes into government.

[Knife]

It will probably become more leftist economicaliy, but more conservative in values if the Centrists comes into government

Bah, excuse my opinion, but that is backwards. IMHO.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Bah, excuse my opinion, but that is backwards. IMHO.

I second that. Well, you know I do.

[Joe]

With the exception of the Centrists, the names of every one of those parties scares me.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Yeah, I know. Over here, we have two nice, normal, self-moderating choices: You vote for the left (Democrats), or you vote for the right (Republicans). Or you vote for a fringe party that will never get elected to any major office (anything else). And the system works beautifully.

I mean, really, it's not all that different from a coalition system - there are lots of internal divisions inside the parties, factions and so on which might considered to have the ideological stances of totally different parties in Europe - But our coalitions are just permanent ones. So it's like going to the polls and choosing between the Left Coalition or the Right Coalition, or a worthless fringe party.

[Oberleutnant]

Hey, great to see another kokoomuslainen!

I voted for the national coalition party as well, though my candidate didn't get through. Things look a bit grim now for us, methinks. In any case I'd much rather have Paavo Lipponen (a social democrat with a "Tony Blairish twist") continuing as the prime minister instead of Jäätteenmäki (a horrible centrist witch, brr)...


@ Duran

Compared to American political parties, I'd say that National Coalition is no further in the right than your Democrats.




Ville Itälä (National Coalition)
current Minister of Interior



Paavo Lipponen (SDP)
the current Finnish Prime Minister



Anneli Jäättenmäki (Centrist)
perhaps our next Prime Minister




Tony "Viikinki" Halme of the Basic Finns party, a former boxer and WWF persona, became extremely popular candidate and will be sitting in our next parlliament

[Sea Skimmer]

Basic Finns: 3 (1), 1.6% (1.0%)

Who the hell named that party?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Basic Finns: 3 (1), 1.6% (1.0%)

Who the hell named that party?

Finland's version of Jesse "The Body" Ventura, apparently.

[Joe]

I suppose what is mainstream rightism and leftism differs from country to country. Most countries are much further left than the U.S. is, and Finland is no exception I guess.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Hey, great to see another kokoomuslainen!

I voted for the national coalition party as well, though my candidate didn't get through. Things look a bit grim now for us, methinks. In any case I'd much rather have Paavo Lipponen (a social democrat with a "Tony Blairish twist") continuing as the prime minister instead of Jäätteenmäki (a horrible centrist witch, brr)...


@ Duran

Compared to American political parties, I'd say that National Coalition is no further in the right than your Democrats.

You do realize that the Democrats are a defineable "Left" in America, don't you?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I suppose what is mainstream rightism and leftism differs from country to country. Most countries are much further left than the U.S. is, and Finland is no exception I guess.

Definitely not; their prison system is incredible over there. I wonder if their government covers up a lot of crime in fact.

[Joe]

I suppose what is mainstream rightism and leftism differs from country to country. Most countries are much further left than the U.S. is, and Finland is no exception I guess.

Definitely not; their prison system is incredible over there. I wonder if their government covers up a lot of crime in fact.

France has a pretty strict prison system also, IIRC, and you couldn't find a more left-wing country. In an economic context, however, I think that most countries are going to be considerably leftist relative to the U.S. .

[The Duchess of Zeon]

France has a pretty strict prison system also, IIRC, and you couldn't find a more left-wing country. In an economic context, however, I think that most countries are going to be considerably leftist relative to the U.S. .

Well, relatively. But, Finland - Well, the Finns don't have a strict prison system.

[Oberleutnant]

You do realize that the Democrats are a defineable "Left" in America, don't you?

Here Democrats would be considered moderate right wingers or at least centrists. If we would closely compare Democrats and National Coalition there would be big differences, of course, but the latter is nothing like the Republicans. They are - how would I put it? - center-right.

National Coalition website
http://www.kokoomus.fi/english/

According to the leadership of the country, namely President Kekkonen and the governing centre-left, it was not possible for the National Coalition party to participate in governments because of the so called "general reasons". By this they referred to the Soviet Union.

[Joe]

France has a pretty strict prison system also, IIRC, and you couldn't find a more left-wing country. In an economic context, however, I think that most countries are going to be considerably leftist relative to the U.S. .

Well, relatively. But, Finland - Well, the Finns don't have a strict prison system.

Oh, I misunderstood you completely; I thought you were implying the opposite. Nevermind.

[Zoink]

Does Finland have a marijuana party? In my riding here in Canada, they get about 5% of the vote.

... now if some of these smoke heads would have voted for the liberals, we'd wouldn't have a block quebecois (separatist) member of parliament...

[Posbi]

@ Marina
Well, in your opinion the Dems might be left (well, let's just say in the general US populace eyes), but compared to our (read: German) conservatives tehy are comparably right.

[Oberleutnant]

Does Finland have a marijuana party? In my riding here in Canada, they get about 5% of the vote.

... now if some of these smoke heads would have voted for the liberals, we'd wouldn't have a block quebecois (separatist) member of parliament...

There were several Green candidates who openly expressed their opinion about legalising marijuana. The chairman of the Green youth even went so far that he talked about how he smoked marijuana right in the center of Helsinki at their campaign stand. They are now saying that the Greens lost probably few seats because of this.

[Oberleutnant]

Here's a little comparison.

The Young Democrats of America website:
http://www.yda.org/

and here's its counterpart from our Youth League of the Coalition Party:
http://www.porvari.com/

See the difference?

"On parempiakin tapoja vaikuttaa" - "There are better ways to influence"

[von Neufeld]

Does Finland have a marijuana party? In my riding here in Canada, they get about 5% of the vote.

... now if some of these smoke heads would have voted for the liberals, we'd wouldn't have a block quebecois (separatist) member of parliament...

There were several Green candidates who openly expressed their opinion about legalising marijuana. The chairman of the Green youth even went so far that he talked about how he smoked marijuana right in the center of Helsinki at their campaign stand. They are now saying that the Greens lost probably few seats because of this.

You forgot to mention that he was suspended for it. Lost a few seats ! The Greens won 3 seats in this election. It is all his fault that the Greens didn't become the largest party in Finland!

[RedImperator]

Dumb. Bragging about how you flaunted marijuana law is not how you convince John Q. Taxpayer to legalize marijuana. You convince him the government is wasting his money trying to keep dopeheads from fucking up their own lives, and if Sam and Suzie Bonghitter want to burn out their brain cells, they might as well pay taxes to do it. Then you go home and smoke a huge blunt to unwind.

[Edi]

Definitely not; their prison system is incredible over there. I wonder if their government covers up a lot of crime in fact.

Could you possibly be any more insulting? Our government is not in the business of covering up crime. We have a quite well functioning criminal justice system, and while it is different from the American one and the punishments are far more lenient when measuring by your yardstick, it works well enough for us. FYI, we happen to have the largest number of prisoners relative to population size of any of the Nordic countries, and prison overcrowding is starting to be a problem. Besides, we don't have any more crime than America does, and even if the overall crime rate is a bit higher (I think it is), violent crime rate, especially homicides, is substantially lower than in America. Our system works, so why break it? Of course it could use some improvement, but no need to scrap it.

Below is a cut & paste of what I have previously posted elsewhere (not SDnet) on how our system works:

I'm pretty happy with the system in Finland so far, but my main gripe is that punishments for different categories of crime are out of proportion relative to each other. Violent crimes short of murder or manslaughter are judged far too leniently, typically the punishment falls into the lowest third of the available scale and rarely goes up past the halfway point even in serious cases. In comparison, you often get much harsher sentences for theft or fraud and other property crimes, as much as you might from assault or aggravated assault. Except in big white collar crime cases where too often the offenders only get a slap on the wrist and are generally handled with silk gloves when what they need is a bit more of the iron fist.

Punishment for murder is life in prison, without possibility of parole. The only way to get free is to be pardoned by the President. Manslaughter is 8 years minimum, twelve years max (twelve years is max punishment from any single crime, if there are more than one before the court at the same time, the sentences can be combined, in which case absolute max is 15 years). Typically a first time offender gets out on parole after sitting half of his sentence, and subsequently after doing two thirds. Prerequisite for getting out on parole is good behavior.

Marina, you should at least try to make an effort to look at the facts before you start making baseless claims.

Edi