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Finns vote as nationalist right poised to surge
The West Australian ^ | 4/17/2011 | AFP

Posted on 04/17/2011 5:12:14 AM PDT by PapaBear3625

HELSINKI (AFP) - Finns began voting in general elections Sunday after a campaign marked by the meteoric rise of the nationalist True Finns party, which is expected to send parliament lurching to the right.

...

The populist, nationalist, immigration-averse True Finns, who are adamantly opposed to European Union bailouts, have meanwhile seen their 4.1 percent tally from the last elections in 2007 balloon to nearly 20 percent in recent polls, although the latest survey put it at 15.4 percent, or fourth place.

(Excerpt) Read more at au.news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: europeanunion; finland; finnland; finns; greece; ireland; portugal; spain; truefinns
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To: little jeremiah; Viiksitimali
Currently the True Finns will be holding 39 seats in the 200 member parliament. The conservative National Coalition Party has 43, and the Centre Party of Finland has 35. A coalition of the three parties would produce a center-right majority coalition with 117 seats. There is no way to have a center-right coalition which excludes the True Finns.

The Centre Party could do a center-LEFT coalition with the various leftist parties. Somebody who actually knows something about Finnish politics, like I assume Viiksitimali does, could weigh in on the probability of that.

21 posted on 04/17/2011 1:06:48 PM PDT by PapaBear3625 ("It is only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything" -- Fight Club)
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To: PapaBear3625

The Centre Party will be spending the term of the next Parliament in the political opposition.


22 posted on 04/17/2011 2:04:37 PM PDT by Viiksitimali
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To: Viiksitimali

Could you elaborate a bit for non-Finns and people are ignorant of what’s going on? This interests me greatly as I loathe the EU.


23 posted on 04/17/2011 2:09:20 PM PDT by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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To: Viiksitimali
The Centre Party will be spending the term of the next Parliament in the political opposition.

I don't see how they can.

The National Coalition plus True Finns plus Centre form a majority center-right coalition. Omit any one of the three, and a center-right coalition is impossible.

Centre plus the Social Democrats plus most of the remaining Left parties can form a center-left coalition.

Centre plus National Coalition plus Social Democrats could conceivably form some sort of center coalition (how well it holds together is another story).

There does not seem to be any sort of viable coalition that does not HAVE TO include Centre.

Or am I missing something here?

24 posted on 04/17/2011 2:28:33 PM PDT by PapaBear3625 ("It is only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything" -- Fight Club)
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To: little jeremiah

The Finns just greatly increased the power of the True Finns, who are now close to being the biggest party in parliament (around 19 percent of the vote, they have a multiparty system due to proportional representation).

The True Finns are:

-Anti-Islamic immigration.

-Anti-EU and anti-EU bailouts.

-Anti-PC.

-Generally disliked by all the usual suspects - I.e. the enemies of civilization (read: LIberals).


25 posted on 04/17/2011 2:35:32 PM PDT by globelamp
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To: PapaBear3625

The chairman of the Centre party said that they are in opposition.


26 posted on 04/17/2011 2:57:07 PM PDT by Viiksitimali
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To: globelamp

Conservative party (Kokoomus), which is similar to RINO GOP won the election and can form the government. True Finns have zero power as the other parties can form government easily without it so euro bailouts will continue.

Any kind of coalition is possible. For example, social democrats have often been in the goverment together with conservative/centre-right parties.


27 posted on 04/17/2011 2:57:49 PM PDT by heiss
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To: little jeremiah

Tomorrow we will know more...


28 posted on 04/17/2011 3:14:05 PM PDT by Viiksitimali
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To: Viiksitimali

Thank you. If you don’t mind pinging when you know more, I’d appreciate. I’m married to someone from Europe and I know he’d be very interested as well.


29 posted on 04/17/2011 3:26:13 PM PDT by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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To: Viiksitimali
Tomorrow we will know more...

Thanks for your posts, without FReepers on the ground to help, we'd know nothing.

30 posted on 04/17/2011 3:30:42 PM PDT by Tijeras_Slim
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To: Viiksitimali

So this is the situation now that all votes have been counted.

Head of Conservative party (”kokoomus”) will be appointed to form a government. He will surely succeed.
Centre-right party (”keskusta”) had big losses and they announced that they will likely be in the opposition.

Parlament has 200 seats and typically government has comfortable majority (e.g. 125 seats). Swedish party has always been in the government (it has no other goal than to be in the government so it is easy to add to the coalition).

Conservative party: 44 seats
SDP: 42 seats
PS (True Finns: 39 seats
Centre 35 seats
Communists 14 seats
Communist/greens: 10 seats
Swedes: 9 seats

Likely coalition is Conservative + SDP + True Finns (125 seats), and with swedes it is 134 seats.

If True Finns would demand real policy changes (e.g. end of EU bailouts, end of mass-immigration) it would simply be replaced by Centre-party or communists in the coalition.

So, no real change expected in Finland’s Euro policy. I expect True Finns to be in the government and not demand any real changes. Next election will wipe them out.


31 posted on 04/17/2011 3:31:30 PM PDT by heiss
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To: Tzimisce
>>>The Pirate Party of Finland?<<<
-—A small party primarily made up of Somali immigrants.
32 posted on 04/17/2011 3:36:47 PM PDT by Shqipo (I am the unofficial originator of the Mega-Bump! Only use judiciously.)
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To: heiss; Viiksitimali
So, no real change expected in Finland’s Euro policy. I expect True Finns to be in the government and not demand any real changes. Next election will wipe them out.

I suspect that they realize that as well, which means that it makes no sense for them to be part of any government which does not either stop EU bailouts or stop Islamic immigration.

In which case, they could withdraw from the governing coalition and spend the next few years denouncing the National Coalition, Centre and SD's as being just facets of the EU elite, with no real difference between them, and proclaim itself as the ONLY choice for people who do not want to be impoverished by the EU bailouts.

When the full scope of the Spanish and Italian bailouts become known, any party which took part in the bailouts will be in trouble with the voters. It might be too much to expect the party leaders to wind up like Mussolini.

33 posted on 04/17/2011 3:43:12 PM PDT by PapaBear3625 ("It is only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything" -- Fight Club)
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To: heiss

SDP and True Finns are against Eu bailouts.


34 posted on 04/17/2011 3:43:27 PM PDT by Viiksitimali
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To: Viiksitimali
The chairman of the Centre party said that they are in opposition.

The True Finns gained 34 seats. EVERY other party lost seats, with the Centre party losing the most, down 16 seats to just 34.

I'm guessing the Finnish people are starting to decide that the Centre is not viable, that they must choose Left or Right.

35 posted on 04/17/2011 3:47:04 PM PDT by PapaBear3625 ("It is only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything" -- Fight Club)
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To: Viiksitimali
SDP and True Finns are against Eu bailouts.

But SDP has immigrants as one of their constituencies. So a coalition of National Coalition, True Finn, and SDP would be united against EU bailouts, but divided on immigration.

That might be a viable coalition -- take care of EU first, and deal with immigration later. True Finns would have to do that regardless, because EU would act to block any anti-immigrant measures that True Finns might try to pass. True Finn can get away with that short-term, because Finland does not (yet) have a significant immigrant population.

36 posted on 04/17/2011 3:53:32 PM PDT by PapaBear3625 ("It is only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything" -- Fight Club)
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To: Viiksitimali

My understanding is that SDP is not against bailout (or eu). They had critical comments against the bailout during the campaign, but the party itself is pro-EU and pro-bailouts (and high taxes).

SDP had some comments that there must be “conditions” to Portugal’s bailout etc. This is easy to achieve (ie some meaningless statement by EU, see Obamacare pro-life statement made for the so called pro-life dems).

Kokoomus and SDP will be the main parties in the government. They have 86 seats. With swedes they have 95 seats. If they add one of the communist parties (greens or leftist party) they have at least 105 seats.

So they don’t need True Finns in the government (if True Finns were to demand end of bailouts).


37 posted on 04/17/2011 3:56:21 PM PDT by heiss
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To: heiss

Sounds like True Finns only viable course is to demand no bailouts, and withdraw from any coalition that agrees to bailouts. The bailout costs will create much anger in the paying countries by next year.


38 posted on 04/17/2011 5:25:11 PM PDT by PapaBear3625 ("It is only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything" -- Fight Club)
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To: PapaBear3625

yes, I agree. If they cave in, they have no future.


39 posted on 04/17/2011 5:28:39 PM PDT by heiss
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To: PapaBear3625; WesternCulture

This is good news IMHO. I hope their Swedish and Norwegian neighbors follow suit.


40 posted on 04/17/2011 7:04:23 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued (Muslims are a people of love, peace, and goodwill, and if you say that they aren't, they'll kill you)
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