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Notes -
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.
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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