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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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FINNISH ELECTIONS TODAY

I haven't had time to write updates here (though I write a weekly Finnish politics etc update on my blog) but a short update:

Finland has a parliamentary election today. The Finnish parliament has 200 MPs, one from autonomous region of Åland (which has its own political system I won't go through here) and the rest from mainland, which is divided to several electoral districts. The Finnish electoral system is "open-list proportional", the parties receive seats according to their votes but what people actually vote for are individual candidates from these lists and the amount of votes for a list in a certain districts is the total vote of all the candidates. As such, Finnish politics is fairly personalized, and elections usually see hundreds of thousands of candidates all running their individual campaigns and party campaigns on top of them.

For the past 4 years, Finland has been led by a center-left government run by Social Democrats, currently under the now-world-famous PM Sanna Marin. During these past 4 years Finland has faced the same COVID and Ukraine crises as all the other countries, as well as the strain caused by aging and sluggish European economy on the welfare state on top of it. The government has simultaneously tied to juggle with the global crises, reform/refund the welfare state and strive for a tight environmental goal of carbon neutrality by 2035, which has caused a lot of strain inside the government.

Finland's parliamentary political parties are (you can also check this to get a "neutral" look at most of these these parties through ChatGPT/Midjourney created candidates):

GOVERNMENT:

Social Democrats (currently 40 seats): A fairly typical European social-democratic party. Center-left, used to be a labor-union party, still kind of is but has also expanded to a more "modern" green-left feminist direction, particularly under Marin. Currently also very dependent on Marin's popularity and visibility.

Centre (currently 31 seats): A center-right rural party, the "odd man out" of the government. Has particularly had a strained relationship to other parties due to the carbon-neutrality goal, which they technically share but which has led to policies that greatly bother their rural/small-town voter base, like cuts to timber production, steeper fuel prices etc. Took a big hit in the last election (when they were in a center-right government). Projected to lose seats.

Greens (currently 20 seats): After a long period of concentrating on intersectionalism and general lefty policies etc., they've tried to refocus back on environmentalism in this government, which hasn't gone particularly well, since the post-Ukraine inflation has put environment on the back burner among Finnish middle-class concerns. Projected to lose seats.

Left Alliance (currently 16 seats): A far-left party that has, for once, tried to be the nice guy of this government and didn't even rock the boat too much when Ukraine war caused Finland to apply for NATO, a thing this party has long opposed fiercely.

Swedish People's Party (currently 10 seats, Åland's MP always caucuses with this party): An interest party for Swedish-speaking Finns. Technically centrist liberal, in practice just mainly concentrates on acting as a quasi-ethnic party that always plays nice in the government to get their few interest-group issues through.

OPPOSITION:

The Finns Party (currently 39 seats): A right-wing populist and nationalist party. Main issue is opposing immigration, is also against new environmental legislation. Possible election winner (ie. might be voted as the largest party), their leader Riikka Purra might replace Marin.

National Coalition (currently 37 seats): A center-right neoliberal party. Stereotypically the "party of the rich", focused on tighter fiscal policies and playing back the debt taken during this government. Long the only party to support NATO, only to now have their signature issue taken way. Also a possible election winner, their leader Petteri Orpo might become the PM.

Christian Democrats (currently 5 seats): A small religious party. The only Finnish party to be anti-abortion, though currently main causes are trying to get Finland's birthrate up and opposing the recently-signed trans reform law.

Movement Now (currently 1 seat): A one-person splinter from National Coalition, led by millionaire who got angry the NC didn't make him a minister the last time they were in government. Imagine a poorer Trump who had none of Trump's humor or charms and hadn't lucked into his immigration top issue. Unsurprisingly this hasn't worked too well. The millionaire might keep his seat.

Power belongs to the People: (currently 1 seat): A one-person splinter from The Finns Party. Led by a bodybuilder who got kicked out for being too racist, then pivoted to anti-Covid-measures/anti-vaxx stuff, then pivoting to QAnon-tier conspiracy theories, then pivoting to pro-Russianism and charismatic Christianity. Will almost certainly lose the guy's seat, upstaged even in the anti-vaxx conspiracy communities by a somewhat less insane splinter Freedom Alliance.

In addition to these there are a bunch of extraparliamentary microparties, in addition to PbtP and FA there are at least three other antivaxx conspiracy parties and these have spent much of this election fighting each other. The most notable microparties are Liberal Party, a libertarian-ish party that has campaigned solely on having an explicit list of 9 billion euros of budget cuts (something like 11 % of Finnish state budget) without cutting health care, education of defense spending and might get a seat, and Blue-and-Black Movement, who probably won't get a seat but have got a fair bit of attention for explicitly being a racist and fascist party (as in, making statements like "Blue-and-Black is a racist party" after The Finns Party said they were not a racist party after some minor affair).

ISSUES:

The main issues have been:

DEBT: Due to Covid, post-Ukraine defense boosts, but also welfare state reforms like the increase of mandatory age of education or overhauling the social and health care system, Finland has taken a fair amount of debt, with Finnish debt-to-GDP ratio increasing from 59 % in 2019 to 72,4 % in 2022. Finnish politics are very debt-averse, so much of this election season has been spent on parties discussing how they're going to bring the debt ratio back down and what sort of cuts they would make. On the other hand, there's also:

HEALTH CARE AND EDUCATION: Despite (or, some would say, because) of the reforms, the Finnish health care and education systems are still showing signs of strain, with there being new health care scandals all over the country almost weekly, at least, and Finnish PISA education scores dropping. Various parties have various measures for fixing this.

STREET GANGS: Street crime, generally by immigrants, has been a theme in Finnish discussions for some time now. The police used to be dismissive about the possibility of gangs even existing in Finland but have taken a stricter tone recently. Unsurprisingly a big issue for The Finns Party, who have seen a major poll rise as the elections approach.

FOREIGN AND DEFENSE POLICY: While this looms extremely large in Finnish consciousness and media because of, you know, it's not a divisive issue among the parties, since they all (apart from small conspiracy theory parties) either support NATO now or at least grudgingly accept its existence, and also support Ukraine against Russia (again, apart from small conspiracy parties). Still, there are individual themes like "Should Finland offer to accept nukes in Finland if NATO wants to base them here?)

POLLS:

Current 30 day polling average:

National Coalition: 20,3%

Social Democrats: 19,3%

The Finns Party: 19,3%

Centre: 10,6%

Greens: 8,6%

Left Alliance: 8,6%

Swedish People's Party: 4,4%

Christian Democrats: 4,0%

Movement Now: 1,8%

Others: 3,2%

GOVERNMENT FORMATION:

As one can see, any one of the largest three parties might be the biggest in the election. If the Social Democrats are the biggest, since the Centre does not want to continue the current government, they would probably form a "blue-red" government with National Coalition and some mix of the other parties, even though the parties have expressed very diverging ideas about economic issues and the debt.

If The Finns Party was the largest, they would probably form a right-wing government with the National Coalition, and maybe Centre and others, as they agree on the economy, though don't agree on all the environmental and immigration questions, and this sort of a government might cause problems with the EU, since TFP is still formally an anti-EU party. If the National Coalition was the biggest they could go either way.

Well, looks like Sanna Marin has lost, at least.

It is very possible that if there's a government between National Coalition and Social Democrats, she'll just continue as a minister, possibly quite a major one (like Financial or Foreign).

How likely do you think such a coalition is? I've only followed the election very lightly but from my perspective it's seems that much of the NC campaign was against the economic policies of the SD, so a coalition after that seems difficult. Or have I perhaps misunderstood things?

Hard to say! This sort of a coalition isn't unusual, and it certainly is one that a large fraction of Finnish elite is gunning for. There are probably many in NC who would prefer SDP simply due to the fact that it's an "established", non-populist party, and better to work with in actual parliamentary/governmental work than the populists in TFP. However, I cannot say yet what are the chances of this government and what are the chances of a right-wing one with NC and TFP - there are too many moving objects in the play.