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I haven't posted weekly Finnish news updates since I now post them on my blog, but the main topic in Finnish politics right now might merit more discussion.
A bit under two weeks from now, Finland got a new government, formed chiefly by center-right and nationalist parties. One of the ministers from the Finns Party, the latter one, has been very controversial right from the start, this being Minister of Economic Affairs Vilhelm Junnila. Junnila is one of the less-known Finns Party politicians outside of this home region, but he’s got a strong background as an anti-immigration hardliner.
It turns out that Junnila has, at the very least, a questionable sense of humor. Among other things, he has:
has made obvious 88 (ie. HH, ie. Heil Hitler) references during the election. In Finnish elections candidates are assigned candidate numbers (you vote by entering a number on the ballot), and Junnila happened to be number 88 in his district in the 2019 election. He had a campaign ad saying "Vote 88 on the 14th" (the election date in 2019) which yeah, could be excused, expect this year he was campaigning in some town where the local party branch manager also happened to have 88 as his electoral number this year, and Junnila went "First of all, congratulations for the excellent candidate number. I know it's a winning card. Obviously, this "88" refers to two H letters which we won't say more about." (he apologized for this particular one)
made a joke about building this KKK snowman in 2014 (he almost assuredly didn't build it, it can be found in Google Search)
also posted "there's a beautiful embossing on this gate"
spoke at a memorial event organized after a fatal stabbing by a Muslim immigrant - the controversy is not organizing a memorial, as such, but the fact that this event was heavily participated by violent street-level groups like Soldiers of Odin or (later-banned) openly Nazi group Nordic Resistance Movement
He's also made a speech in the parliament (link in Finnish) calling for the government to invest in "climate abortions" in Africa, which seems like the kind of a statement that's calculated to offend just about everyone. There's a bunch of other, less relevant controversies (posing with a statue of general Lee while visiting the US etc.) but those are less consequential and haven't featured that much.
Much of the local debate has concentrated on the fact that Junnila, as the Minister of Economic Affairs, is specifically in charge of Finland's trade relationships, including with countries where making these sort of comments, even as jokes, is not treated in as cavalier a manner as Finland, which would be at the very least most of the rest of Europe. Junnila's first visits are (at least according to some comment I saw) supposed to be in Germany and Israel, which certainly would be among the least likely countries to approve of this stuff.
Junnila and the whole government faced a vote of confidence over these comments, with Junnila in particular surviving a very close 95-86 vote only due to many opposition MPs not being present, presumably due to already having checked out of the parliamentary schedule. The liberal, ethnic-minority oriented Swedish People's Party extraordinarily mainly voted against Junnila despite being in government, where they very uncomfortably decided to participate after much hemming and hawing over the Finns Party's role - of course, in parliamentary systems, a party standing against its own government, even in case of one minister, is a highly destabilizing act, and it remains to be seen how, exactly, they're supposed to work with Junnila inside the government now.
After getting criticized by the socially conservative Christian Democrats (also in government) for his climate abortion speech and by the Finnish president generally, Junnila has resigned.
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Fringe political movements are often marred by general incompetence. Such as not knowing all the correct procedures and not having enough money to hire lawyers and accountants to keep everything nice and clean. This doesn't read like that however and seems more like deliberate trolling.
How does Junnila come across as a person? His mannerisms and such. Judging by the picture in the link he doesn't look like the type of 'oaf' you would typically hear these comments from in a breakroom.
I dunno. I don't live in his district and he hasn't been a major political figure until now (ie. I haven't seen him on TV).
My guess would also be that he's mostly trolling or engaging in dark humor, but there's such an amount of this stuff one has to start to evenually wonder. There's a minor fascist/racist party called Blue and Black Movement (as in, they've explicitly referred to themselves as both fascist and racist, using these terms) whose chair has repeatedly, while clashing with Finns Party supporters (he used to be a member himself) on Twitter, stated that his party "just says openly what Finns Party politicians say in sauna after five beers", though not explicitly referring to Junnila.
Black and Blue? As in, "We're gonna beat people up"?
Black shirt with a blue tie was the official uniform of the Lapua Movement, Finland's most prominent fascist movement in the 1930s. The new party has replicated this group in their election ads.
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Maybe just post the blogposts here? (with a link and with text copied into the post body)
I've thought of that, but some people have also complained about people promoting their Substacks or other blogs.
I don't know what the mods' position is, but I'm in favour of posters like you and Kulak linking to your blogs here (or indeed, anyone writing the kind of stuff popular here, even if they're not an established poster). I'd like to see more top-level posts outside of the CWR generally.
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I personally think it'd be fine so long as you copy the text over since you're an established poster and the content is interesting
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So was he known about ahead of time, or what’s the story?
Like you kind of expect eg Croatia or Latvia to periodically put a neonazi in an important government position because no one there cares enough to check, but it doesn’t sound like Finland is in that club too.
It's a political tradition that parties in government have a free hand at selecting their own ministers, and I guess that the Finns Party was bound by one of its factions or regional politics to put Junnila in. It's pretty confusing, since the party actually had an obvious alternative - even before this they were planning to only have Junnila as this minister for two years and then replace him with MP Sakari Puisto who has obtained a Ph.D (in Physics) from Cambridge and is basically considered by the rest of the political sphere to be the most competent and moderate politician the party has.
Of course, it's very possible the party has specifically wanted to test a reaction to a controversial politician like this to expand the Overton window and force the other parties in government to co-sign the idea that having made comments like this won't shut you out of the government - and since they're populists, they might also instinctively distrust Puisto precisely since the other parties like him and would prefer him.
Do they have a large number of politicians who openly praise Hitler that they would like to put in government positions?
They've got many politicians who have generally made very outlandish comments on a variety of topics, though the rest of their currently selected ministers don't belong to this category.
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I kind of admire unintentional irony here. Especially that it was votes for their removal.
Ahh, I actually (unconsciously?) put in the wrong number, it was actually 95-86. Several people commented that if the opposition had managed to bring in just two voters it would have been perfect, though. Or if two persons voting present from the ruling center-right party National Coalition, which had otherwise successfully whipped their guys to support their minister, had instead voted against him - one of these was incidentally Ben Zyskowicz, Finland's only Jewish MP, who otherwise can generally be counted in to be a party loyalist and a solid right-winger.
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