Finnish elections vs. Swedish elections
Many Finns seem to pride themselves on the fact that coalitions aren’t formed and possible PM’s aren’t decided before the election like what happened in Sweden’s parliamentary elections last week. But Unto Hämäläinen of Helsingin Sanomat has a good point…
Things would be quite different if the parties were to form two alliances according to the Swedish model. Eero Heinäluoma could be the common prime ministerial candidate of the SDP, the Left Alliance, and the Greens. Matti Vanhanen would be an appropriate candidate for the Centre, the National Coalition Party, the Swedish People’s Party, and the Christian Democrats. Then the voters could directly influence who takes the post, and what parties will be in the government coalition.
This is not what will happen in Finland. The parties in the government, and the person who leads it, will be decided in negotiations to be held after the elections. The winner will be the leader of one of the three largest parties - the one who gets a majority of votes from Members of Parliament.
Why on earth would voters of Kokoomus want to have Matti Vanhanen as prime minister?
Comment by Mikko Ellilä — Fri, Sep 22nd, 2006 @ 3:39 pm
What the…! keep “Kepu” and Kokoomus separate! Kepu’s full of bastards (Although I recently learned that Uuspaavalniemi is one of them
)
Comment by S.Y — Fri, Sep 22nd, 2006 @ 8:07 pm
Ah, elections that keep the voters in the dark guessing who they actually voted for. Got to love them.
Comment by Anonymous — Sat, Sep 23rd, 2006 @ 1:54 am
Why on earth would voters of Kokoomus want to have Matti Vanhanen as prime minister?
Indeed, why should the white collar slaves, representatives of the working class, of kokoomus vote for KePu, which stands for true feudal lords, ones on the dole, but anyway…
Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Sat, Sep 23rd, 2006 @ 2:44 am
Well, this sort of thing is basically inherited from the war period when we noticed that as compared with Stalin the difference between say SDP and Kokoomus, is, hmm, minor. Then Kekkonen got into power with his obsession of getting all the large parties behind the foreign policy that he own the copyright for. As a concequence we have this fairly absurd system where almost any combination is possible. The difference to Sweden doesn’t concern electoral system but political history. And that we can’t change. If we would have majority districts there would be automatic bipolarity but I don’t really know whether that would be a huge improvement. The next elections will be interesting: the big three are already feverishly manouvering to avoid being the odd one out. This is probably Kokoomus’ big chance, too bad for them that Sauli Niinistö is too bored with Finnish politics these days.
Comment by mjr — Sat, Sep 23rd, 2006 @ 11:54 am
SDP would be foolish to go along with this scheme and rule out cooperating with Centre and Coalition. If for the sake of argument we count SDP, Left Alliance, Greens, Finnish People’s Democratic League (SKDL), and various mimor leftist parties as one side, by my count this alliance would have won three elections out of 34 - in 1916, 1958, and 1966. I guess someone might believe that SDP’s support would grow if they were perpetually in opposition, but it didn’t quite work out that for Coalition, for example.
I disagree with the notion that the Swedish model would give the voters more choice. It would reduce the alternatives for prime minister from three to two. The voters could choose which alliance they want to govern, but they couldn’t influence the composition of the governing alliance to the extent that they do now. In effect they’d have less choice, but the remaining alternatives would be more definite.
Comment by a lamb with no guiding light — Sat, Sep 23rd, 2006 @ 12:27 pm
I want to write to you about something that you could write.
Finnish TV Guides. As the titles are translated into finnish it is next to impossible to find out what is the title in english. Yle Ohjelmaopas sometimes has the title inside the review, sometimes not. So it is quite hard to find reviews and addional information on the web.
Like “Kuninkaan mies: Maailman laidalla”? It is “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”! @mtv3 next monday.
Comment by toivo — Sat, Sep 23rd, 2006 @ 5:16 pm
Toivo,
learn Finnish!
Ok, jokes aside, here is my “Idiot’s guide to Finnish movie title”:
go to http://www.ohjelmat.info, select a day (do I need to explain MA TI KE TO PE LA SU?). Then you’l get a TV list for selected day.
Guess what? Movies are in bold font
Click the title, you get a pop-up with movie synopsis. There you find country of origin and original title.
Example: SU 24.09, MTV3, 19.15 19.15 Vegas vie voiton
Click it and you’ll get
19.15 Vegas vie voiton
(Vegas Vacation)
Suosittu amerikkalainen Driscollin riemuperhe lähtee lomalle viihdekeskus Las Vegasiin, jossa jokainen perheenjäsen sotkeutuu uhkapelin houkutusten lisäksi jopa eroottisiiin seikkailuihin. Ohjaaja: Stephen Kessler, USA, 1997. (91′) Pääosissa: Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo, Randy Quaid, Ethan Embry, Marisol Nichols, Miriam Flynn, Shae D’Lyn, Wayne Newton, Siegfried Fischbacher, Roy, Wallace Shawn, Sid Caesar
Comment by Alex — Sat, Sep 23rd, 2006 @ 11:17 pm
Phil:
The whole point with the voting system in Finland (which is by far more democratic than the system in the U.S.) is that there are NO alliances to begin with. There might be innofficial ones, but the voters have the chance to affect the alliances formed. Unlike the non-democratic two party dictatorships in the U.S. and U.K. (known for being the most keen on advising other countries about the subject of “democracy”).
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