Below is the second and final installment of the report by KGS and Vasarahammer on the political crisis in Finland. Part One is here.
This essay was originally posted at Tundra Tabloids in a slightly different form.
Et tu, Sampo? Sampo Terho (front right) congratulates Jussi Halla-aho on being elected chairman of The Finns
Disintegration of the Finns party
Part 2: The execution of the plan
On Monday June 12th Jussi Halla-aho was scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Juha Sipilä (Center Party) and Minister of Finance Petteri Orpo (National Coalition Party). The meeting took place at Kesäranta, the Prime Minister’s residence in Helsinki.
Petteri Orpo (left) with Prime Minister Sipilä
In that meeting Halla-aho stated that he would honor the agreements made by his predecessor in the party leadership and would require no changes to the government’s policy statement. He would, however, make sure that those issues in the statement that are important to the Finns party would be realized.
Regarding Timo Soini’s position as the foreign minister, Halla-aho indicated that “Soini should draw his own conclusions”. Halla-aho clearly wanted the long time leader of the party to leave his government position so he could install his own candidate to the post of Foreign minister. Halla-aho also stated that he would remain as MEP and lead the party from Brussels until the next parliamentary election. Also, he would not take any position within the Sipilä government.
A short time afterwards the leaders of the Center Party and National Coalition party issued a joint statement indicating that cooperation with the Finns party led by Halla-aho would not be possible. In the press conference Prime Minister Sipilä said that it was not really the government’s policy statement that mattered but the fact that Halla-aho would lead his party from Brussels. Sipilä also stated that he would not like a change of personnel at the position of foreign minister. Sipilä did not criticize Halla-aho’s person.
Finance Minister Petteri Orpo
Finance Minister Petteri Orpo, on the other hand, went on to speak about “values”. He said that the values of Halla-aho and National Coalition Party are incompatible, so his party would not cooperate with the Finns party led by Halla-aho. Orpo’s moral posturing was nauseating. Also, he was Minister of Interior at the time of the migrant invasion, and was at the time severely criticized for his lack of action.
The press conference led to intense speculation about what would happen next. At that point it looked like Sipilä would resign and a new government would be formed. Sipilä could get the majority in two ways: either persuade the Social democrats to replace the Finns party or enlist the help of two minor parties, the Christian Democrats and the Swedish People’s Party, who were eager to join Sipilä’s government. However, the leader of the Social Democrats had indicated that he would not join any government unless there was a snap election immediately. The problem with the two minor parties was the fact that they would only provide a slim majority of 101-99. The media screamed that the government was in crisis. To an outsider, Sipilä’s actions seemed insane. Why should he risk his government and use such flimsy excuses?
Sauli Niinistö, the president of the republic, intervened at this point to issue a statement, in which he wondered whether Halla-aho and second deputy leader Teuvo Hakkarainen had shown insufficient remorse after their convictions for hate speech. The president (who has a legal degree) used a legal term that was normally reserved for other types of crimes. In addition, it is not customary for the president, who has no authority on the issue, to intervene in party politics.
From crisis to farce
To an outside observer it looked like Sipilä’s and Orpo’s actions were stage-managed. They were following a script, and there was nothing Halla-aho could have done to change their minds. Halla-aho’s terms were reasonable. He wasn’t asking too much. Why did they behave like that?
Today it is a known fact that both Sipilä and Orpo as well as president Niinistö knew about Soini’s plan to create a splinter group from his loyalists. The only question was how many MPs would join Soini, Jussi Niinistö, and Sampo Terho.
Simon Elo (center), chairman of the breakaway New Alternative Party
Tuesday 13th June was the date of the first parliamentary group meeting for the Finns party since the election of Jussi Halla-aho as party chairman. This is the moment everything turns into a farce. 20 Finns party MPs leave the room and later announce that they will form a new parliamentary group called Uusi Vaihtoehto (New Alternative).
At the same time Prime Minister Juha Sipilä is flying his jet to meet with President Sauli Niinistö at his summer residence in Naantali. In the middle of the route Sipilä turns back. The crisis is over and the meeting with the president was canceled. The government can continue but the Finns party will no longer be in it, but is replaced by the breakaway group of former Finns party parliamentarians including former party leader Soini, Jussi Niinistö and Sampo Terho.
Later Prime Minister Sipilä burns the letter of resignation intended for the president in the fireplace at his Kesäranta residence. The whole thing looks like an episode in the House of Cards. There is nothing genuine in Sipilä’s and Soini’s charade except the hunger for power and money.
“The New Alternative”
The name of the splinter group is funny in itself, since it consists of Soini loyalists whose political future is almost exactly two years long. Soini himself will get a cozy government job, probably as an ambassador, and could not care less about the future of his pals in “New Alternative”.
Soini has destroyed his credibility, altogether and everyone can see that he is only looking for a well-paid job before retirement. Few people today believe that his tenure in Sipilä’s government serves any other purpose than his own self-interest.
Timo Soini, former leader of the Finns
However, his stunt also destroyed the political careers of his loyalists. Why would they join Soini in his personal quest for money? Some of the loyalists probably know that their political future would be short anyway in a party led by Halla-aho. Sampo Terho said that the Finns party will never be in the government again if it is led by Halla-aho. But will anyone ever vote for them even if they defect to another party or start a new one, as they have hinted? Are they being paid for what they have done? Nobody knows, but there is certainly something fishy in their behaviour.
It is telling that they sent two of their most inexperienced operatives in front of the cameras to tell bogus stories about Nazi salutes and death threats. The Finnish MSM, such as the taxpayer-funded Yle, joined their charade when it took seriously the claim about Nazi salutes. They published a picture of the alleged Nazi salute. Later it turned out that the people in the picture were requesting permission to speak at the convention. The bogus claim was made by Tiina Elovaara, who is a member of “New Alternative”.
Not Nazis — Finns party members request permission to speak
Soini, Vistbacka and their allies are now trying to create a narrative that the party was hijacked from under them. There have been claims of a secret Facebook group to recruit new members for the party. The existence of the Facebook group and the two men behind it has never been proven. However, there had been an open campaign on the internet to oust Soini from his post for several months. When Soini decided not to run, the campaign changed its goal to that of making Halla-aho the new leader of the Finns party.
There is nothing wrong in running such a campaign. This is just normal political activism, but Soini and Vistbacka are trying to make it look like there is something wrong in that. A Yle article from 3rd May tells us that Halla-aho’s candidacy in the leadership election did not cause an exceptional rise in the membership applications. There is no evidence of anybody hijacking the party. Soini and Vistbacka simply don’t want to admit that the disillusionment with Soini and his cronies is the real reason behind their defeat.
Final act
There remains one thing that the current Finns party leadership must do: they must expel the members of the “New Alternative” from the party. This will be carried out by the Finns party board, which consists of the elected leaders, representative of the parliamentary group and five people elected by the party council.
There is a risk that the party board will block the decision to expel the members of the “New Alternative”. However, the members of the board are ordinary people with a sense of justice. They have witnessed Soini’s crookedness and the breaking of his promises. They will see through his lies and deceit. They will expel him and his loyalists.
Party rules don’t allow for the existence of two separate parliamentary groups. Currently there are two groups: the official Finns party parliamentary group and the “New Alternative”. There is money at stake, since the Finns party parliamentary group receives an annual party subsidy from the taxpayer to the amount of 5 million euros. If the party board were to decide that “New alternative” parliamentary group is actually the representative of the party, the money would go to Soini and his allies. Again this is unlikely, since nobody with any integrity would do that.
Inadvertently, Soini and his partners in crime have provided the Finns party with a new beginning. The rot has been squeezed out. They can start over without the baggage of Soini and his lot.
Jussi Halla-aho (left) and Vice-Chair Teuvo Hakkarainen
Ever since Brexit populist movements and parties have been taking a drubbing in European elections. Doesn’t matter if it is Wilders, the 5 star movement, UKIP LePen in France, or AfD in Germany. I have found that only mildly surprising as the deck has been stacked strongly against them by the globalist managerial class that runs the media, large companies, universities, populates the bureaucracy, and run pretty much all political parties. In Europe the range of acceptable politics is roughly that of a tuba. You can vote for a left wing globalist party or a center left globalist party or a centrist globalist party. Other alternatives simply do not exist or are quickly annihilated by the establishment. It will take something cataclysmic to change that dynamic like the disintegration of the European Union brought about by the withdrawal of several states at once.
Here in Germany, basically the same happens. Within the AfD, the Purists are winning. The antagonists which mainly are of the Petry/Pretzel-wing are now revealling themselves as moles.
Those who came from other parties are defecting. Again. Or they are backstabbing the local candidate for the General elections in Autums, gladly assisted by the “Quality Media”. Possibly, some which were ousted from powerful positions within the Party are forging documents to prevent local branches to participate at the elections.
I have always interpreted European politics as involving the armor around minds in this quote from Solzhenitsyn:
Without formal censorship in the West, there has nevertheless developed a trend in which certain fashionable ideas always predominate in the media and literature. “This gives birth to strong mass prejudices, blindness, which is most dangerous in our dynamic era.” This self-deluding interpretation of the contemporary world becomes a petrified armor around people’s minds.”
I find it odd that Western voters simply will not support nationalist parties. Similarly, Westerners shy away from realistic views on Islam like they are radioactive. Too, it is impossible to find any mention in the MSM of the idea of zero immigration. Any mention of it invariably assumes that, of course, SOME immigration is desirable.
These are unshakeable views but why is a mystery to me.
The idea that the elites confine views within narrow channels is not satisfying. After all, there’s the official view of 9/11. It’s really official but lots of people have effortlessly strayed off the reservation and rejected the official view.
If people can do that outside the reach if the media, why is there no skepticism where other official views are at issue? There’s manifestly tons more evidence that immigration is disastrous than there is for 9/11 Truther nonsense but it’s like a minefield into which the average person simply will not go. More millions of migrants, please! Wir schaffen das! Down with those greasy (spit) nationalists!
The MSM is monolithic because there’s so much money involved, the slightest stumbling block by the appropriate federal regulatory agency can cost a station tens of millions of dollars. It’s no coincidence that up until a few years ago, broadcast communications were the wealthiest and most uniform segment. The federal regulations limited access to upstart companies, and the flip side of the fabulously wealthy coin was the networks didn’t really rock any boat.
Cable networks are less regulated; the rationale that there is a limited bandwidth can’t be sustained. Even more so for the internet. The fed is always trying to get a foothold in the door of regulation, latest being the “fair access” canard. Lately, the Obama administration ceded internet control to the non-government, non-accountable ICAN group, obviously prime for a Soros or Saudi takeover.
I think the aversion to nationalism you refer to is a result in the US of the influx of third-world migrants who have not the intelligence or the interest to explore the topic of American nationalism. The Europeans may have simply been in welfare states too long, which I argue results in a genetic change in the population.
Almost by definition, nationalist or identity politics eventually involved a withdrawal into homogeneous territories. Cohesive national groups actually do a pretty good job of protecting the territories they claim. The Boers did a pretty credible job against the British in the Boer war, until the British resorted to mass murder of Boer civilians.
My main worry is that large powers, such as the US, NATO etc will intervene in local territorial fights against nationalists. This happened under Bill Clinton during the Bosnian and Kosovo Wars. I personally don’t think Clinton cared about either side, but that he went with the money. which most likely originated in Saudi Arabia.
Media concentration is unbelievable and nothing is done to dilute it, any more than anything is done to prevent vote fraud. Freedom of expression and the ballot are central to a representative republic but you wouldn’t know that from The Guardians. Ditto for campaign donations and in-kind contributions to candidates. Why should a billionaire have 70 M votes to my one? That’s how it works out.
The financially ruinous consequences of regulatory misstep are a feature not a bug. The Beautiful People will control the content, no matter what.
AM and FM radio stations seem stuck in the technology of the ’60s. I don’t know anything about the technology but there was some talk a while back about some kind of squeezing of narrower AM frequency bands. Too, I wonder if there’s more room for more low-power stations. Maybe not. I imply nothing sinister but do wonder why computer power as has increased dramatically and satellite TV channels have multiplied like welfare recipients but radio frequencies seem locked in the prototype steam engine phase.
All the more so with cable. Somehow the technology just doesn’t exist to allow for really diverse views. Levin’s CRTV has to go the wifi route, which is still a good first step but why there can’t be 20,000 cable channels AND the ability to refuse to finance stinking garbage is a disgrace. As unquestionable as the Trinity and non-austerity socialist benevolence.
I don’t see the immigrant influx as being that determinitive of the debate. An awakened white population would swamp their particular vote for shariah and welfare for four wives.
Clinton’s intervention in the Balkans was strange. A diversion from his problems with Monica, money, MIC? Nothing good. I certainly agree that any intervention by the U.S. will not be to vindicate anything honest, decent, or supportive of our great civilization.
The degradation of the gene pool is an interesting point. The levels of testosterone in American males have dropped over the last 20 years and the two world wars killed off the most virile portions of the population in Europe and Russia. Then again it’s possibly just the massive increase in state power since 1900 but that still doesn’t satisfy. Unless the political class really is able to manipulate votes, which I discount at present, a 10-20% shift in voting patterns would smash a lot of rice bowls and satrapies. Still. But the voters are enervated and indifferent when they could easily inform themselves with a weekend on the web.
Want to understand finns mindset?
You just need to know about the short history of this bunch of northern finno ugric [rudeness redacted],
Finland didnt even exist a hundred years ago, its claimed Finns as a tribe originate from northern Russia,
Read the kalle vala, finnish folklore, it portrays Finns perfectly,
The murder of “Christian bishop Henry” by Lalle,
The first christian church was built in Nousiainen, western Finland,
Lalle was a blockhead, or redneck,
[rudeness redacted]Most finns are weird introvert types, then they drink some kosken korva, and want to start fight with you.
Finland is [derogatory adjectives] nation of misfits, they even have a historian by name of matti klinge, whos involved in rewriting and distorting finnish history for the leftists, to make it all fit the socialist narrative.
Best to read, “the baltic world, by david kirby”
Estonia is much better place, tallinn only 80 km across baltic, no so many femi nazis there, and beer is 80% cheaper.
Finland is ruled by rich swedes. The riches familys in finland, are swedish olligarchs like the Ernrooths, and the ahlstroms,
Swedish speaking finns, though only 8% of the population, weild the real power. And the swede finns view finnish people as Lalle types, thick red necks and lumber jacks.
Finlnd was great place, now its a poisoned Socialist marxist feminist HELL HOLE!!!
Hyvaa ilta suomalianen :()
What the hell?
There is so much wrong in your message that I’m not even going to start righting them.
Finns are quiet and moody, yes, and that is often taken as hostility, but nothing could be further from the truth. Finns are very friendly and welcoming to those they know and trust, you just have to get to know them first. When you befriend a Finn, you have a friend for life who will turn the world upside down for, if you but ask.
Also I believe the Finns, Estonians and Magyars have ethnic and linguistic ties, from their migration from south central Asia less than a millenium ago.
It was more than a millennium. The Magyars arrived in Europe by the early 7th century.
Oh yes?
And what is wrong???
I stAted verifiable facts!
I lived in helstinki for 8 years,
I was there when the 0riginal 5000 somalis showed up in 1992,
I have watched with horror as that country has been turned into a homosexual tourist destination, just go into any public sauna in helsinki, especially the one close to the omalleys irish bar, torni hotel, its full of foreign and finnish men swimming naked, and they complain if you wear a towel around u while in the sauna!
This public sauna is disgrace! Sanctioned Debauchery! Finland has gone insane! Its now a pc orwellian hell hole, controlled by pink mafia lgbt nutters, and insane socialist nazis, finland needs a new winter war, thus one against there own commie political traitors and the freaks who promoting homosexuality!
Estonia is closest youll get to being sane again, they already experienced your future, eussr is on its last legs,
I cant wait.
If you truly lived for eight years in Finland, then your ignorance of the country and the customs of the Finnish people is that much more staggering. Case in point, the public sauna. You think its rampant homosexuality, while in fact, it is an age-old custom in Finland to go naked in the sauna. The sauna, in Finland, is one of the truly non-sexual experiences that you can have in this country. I think you are projecting something here.