When you start to flick turds into the fan everyone gets sprayed
@ 8:26 pm As we all know Finns have been hugely proud of the “low corruption index”, while on the other hand “everyone knew” the political scene was a pile of manure just sitting there in the back of the yard. The old wisdom said “Shit don’t stink unless you go poking it” and now that shit has hit the fan. I don’t know how much the readership of this blog knows about the intricacies of Finnish politics, or the constitutional dependencies of the president, parliament and the cabinet, but mildly put the government right now is in neck deep, and any move they will make means more trouble.
The whole issue is about election funding – the whole stinkpot started bubbling already in May when it came clear that the legislation over party funding and especially its transparency were so full of loopholes that in principle there were no reprecussions for not disclosing where a politician got the money. Different parties came forward wanting to come clean and at the same time started to make all kinds of “privacy” excuses for not revealing their funding sources. Quite showing the slimy nature of politics the Left League was at first vocal demanding all parties open their books, but after the Left League was asked of their own funding the excuse was “the treasurer is on summer holiday”.
Unlike political scandals usually, this all wasn’t forgotten over the holidays. The parties started divulging their sponsors but the bankruptcy of Nova Group investment company started the domino effect. The investment company had channeled several hundred thousand euros towards the Centre party and the bankruptcy court eventually has sued the Centre party to return the monies as misappropriated assets. The Nova Group’s business dealings and municipal zoning started to raise questions of corruption, but more was to follow. As the different sources of money were investigated, centre party politicians were found to be in leading positions in government organizations and foundations that had then channeled money back to the party coffers. Of course the Prime Minister doesn’t see any troube in this kind of funding.
Now the other parties definitely don’t have unblemished reputations either, after all its a well-known fact the Social Democrats get huge funding out of the different unions’ and the Swedish Peoples Party from its rich cultural foundations. Which isn’t technically wrong if the purpose of the foundation or organization in the rules is actually to support political parties. Meanwhile the different opposition parties are starting to demand for the cabinet to resign and even a new early parliamentary election. Which provides an interesting dilemma – the Prime Minister, neck deep in the scandal is highly unlikely to call for a new election as his own party would definitely lose. The President’s powers have been curtailed, so she cannot dissolve the parliament either. And for the parties now in government, their outlooks of getting to form a new government looks slightly bad. The professor of public law from the University of Jyväskylä dryly stated that “in a Western Democracy the government would have resigned already”
The funding issues have caused several government organizations starting from the parliamentary ombudsman to start investigations regarding party funding, and it seems there might be more and more revelations as the weeks pass. So far there has been outrage over the fact that blatant tax evasion creative tax planning seems to be rife, and the secrecy of the funding has raised the question wasn’t the government-paid party support money supposedly put in place so that parties could function without dodgy support. There will be a lot more shit hitting the fan before the politicians can withdraw back to their cabinet schemings, so if the opposition manages to pull off a vote of no confidence we might well be looking for some interesting campaigning already this winter and not have to wait for 2011. Even though the politicians in power are definitely hoping that the shitfan will run out of power next year and the nations’ memory fade any moral outrage by the next. And we all can go sleep again peacefully as “there is no corruption in Finland”.
- UPDATE - The opposition parties made a statement today suggesting the Prime Minister to “make conclusions” over the issue. The Cabinet announced it shall be giving its “Government report to the Parliament” over the election funding issue – after which there shall be a “vote of confidence”. The discussion over the issue is still waiting the PM who is at the moment in the USA attending an United Nations Climate Change Conference.
Finland ranked fifth in 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index (source: Wikipedia). Let’s see 2009 results.
Comment by S. Alainen — Wed, Sep 23rd, 2009 @ 10:02 pm
In addition to this scandal theres the bribery investigations of Patria and Instrumentarium. So I’d say we’ll be well indexed allright.
Comment by Hank W. — Wed, Sep 23rd, 2009 @ 10:40 pm
I’m fully aware that this is considered the lowest form of trolling, but seriously: “loose”, “presidents”, “campaining” and “banktrupcy”? From a native speaker?
Comment by Anonymous — Wed, Sep 23rd, 2009 @ 11:20 pm
+1 to Hank for becoming a native speaker
Nice post also. I am only afraid that even when this government steps down and new elections are to be held, we will see the same parties, same faces coming back. And who knows, even Ike can then also have his ministry back. I can’t explain why Finns seem to be so afraid of change, even when change is what is absolutely needed.
Comment by majava — Thu, Sep 24th, 2009 @ 7:23 am
OMG they’re having a candlelight vigil on Eduskuntatalo stairs tonight. Wonder if more people show up than at the Kurd demonstration in Tikkurila police station for their PKK collectors being held.
Comment by Hank W. — Thu, Sep 24th, 2009 @ 8:19 am
Dear Hank, you hit off the shit by this post. And yes, there is an invisible corruption in here. No wonder why over a million of Finns moved abroad just for working, beside the collapsing Health system for the Säästäminen sake.
Comment by Anonymous — Thu, Sep 24th, 2009 @ 8:44 am
If there is such a thing as a no-issue,this is it. Media has made this huge scandal over something that is
1.legal
2.all 3 parties seem to do it so who should we blame.
Comment by nasse — Thu, Sep 24th, 2009 @ 8:46 am
@7 yup, the attitude is probably “what we do is legal, so how can it be corruption ??”
Comment by v.i.lenin — Thu, Sep 24th, 2009 @ 9:01 am
Well if we have the oikeuskansleri, krp, valtion asuntorhasto, ray and prh investigating then I guess we can rest assured of the legality after their findings.
But you are correct Nasse, after all wasn’t it Vanhanen who said “people should not think they can have a say in things by voting.”
Comment by Hank W. — Thu, Sep 24th, 2009 @ 9:03 am
Nice work deconstructing this for us, Hank. Your use of relatively simple sentence structure (this time) did not go unnoticed by this reader.
Perhaps Finland leaders appear to be the “least corrupt” in the world because they figured out how to be the most corrupt by merely following their own loopholes and laws?
Comment by Dave The Revelator — Thu, Sep 24th, 2009 @ 10:03 am
@10
Well to be exact, the politicians and others used to know the loopholes. The thing I find the most funny about this is for how simple things these professional politicians are getting nailed for.
I mean you could still give out some credit if there was something complex or obfuscated about this funding, but when the prime minister just decides to give himself some money, then he is really inept even at corruption.
It is also good to remember, we’re not talking huge sums exactly here, and it is still around campaign funding only. At least there is some shock left in Finland for this kind of thing. In the US I don’t think anyone still cares about the multibillion dollar lobbying and conflicts of interest when it comes to politics.
Comment by philtard — Thu, Sep 24th, 2009 @ 11:01 am
philtard – whether it’s a shock or not, it definitely blurrs the cristal clear vision or myth about non-corrupt Finns.
Will PISA test be the next demolished myth here?
Comment by same — Thu, Sep 24th, 2009 @ 12:52 pm
@11
Let’s see if they start investigating zoning decisions in favour of big contributors, that’s where the really obvious, big corruption should be.
@12
PISA: just ask anyone who’s been through the Finnish school system, you’ll get it demolished.
Comment by prince of dorkness — Thu, Sep 24th, 2009 @ 2:35 pm
@12
There are definetely issues if people perceive Finland as having little corruption based on such studies. There isn’t that sort of rampant corruption and bribery like for example in russia or china.
But “cow dealing” (as goes the finnish expression) has been always known, which is teetering on the edge illegality and definete immorality.
Unfortunately it seems now the politicians have gotten too used to being able to do things without anyone monitoring them and have wandered off into the definetely illegal end of things.
What I’m trying to say I wouldn’t try to slip any bills to cops or kela-workers in Finland just yet.
Comment by philtard — Thu, Sep 24th, 2009 @ 11:49 pm
hey could someone clarify how things work on the government here in Finland ?
Suppose that there is a vote of no confidence, what then ? Is Masa forced to call new elections ?
Comment by idiot — Fri, Sep 25th, 2009 @ 6:14 am
Votes of no confidence happen all the time. It needs a majority no. of votes (how many?) that will never be reached.
Comment by majava — Fri, Sep 25th, 2009 @ 7:20 am
“What I’m trying to say I wouldn’t try to slip any bills to cops or kela-workers in Finland just yet.”
This slipping a bill to cops has saved me good amount of money last summer:))
Comment by same — Fri, Sep 25th, 2009 @ 9:26 am
“This slipping a bill to cops has saved me good amount of money last summer:))”
You went back home for the summer?
Comment by Cunter — Fri, Sep 25th, 2009 @ 10:14 am
No darling, that was not very far from Finland. Sorry I forgot to send you a postcard.
Comment by same — Fri, Sep 25th, 2009 @ 12:35 pm
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Election+funding+causes+rumblings+in+government/1135249584192
Comment by Hank W. — Fri, Sep 25th, 2009 @ 3:51 pm
Finnish polies like most of the breed have an ingrained tendency to send the bills to the tax payers – valtion piikkiin – the brotherhood- veljeskunta- that politically exploits these long suffering succers in Finland needs an overhaul. Pity is that there is no real alternative in Finland .Take the money and run.
Comment by Exile — Sun, Sep 27th, 2009 @ 4:46 am
I don’t know if the issue is really in the end of if the funding has been tachnically legal – theres evidence that some of the sources have been inappropriate. Now it seems more coming to look like an authority and power issue. Vanhanen is more or less acting like a martyr which really doesn’t make him look any better.
Comment by Hank W. — Sun, Sep 27th, 2009 @ 8:06 am
Unless there is a police investigation then I think nothing much will be done. Vanhanen will probably resign but there won’t be any structural change in how political parties fund their campaigns.
When it comes to indexes, there is statistically a margin of error of up to 10 places. So Finland might be the 15th least corrupt country and so on.
In countries where corruption is more rampant usually the taxation burden for the company is less. If you look at profit margins and operating costs then it can be pretty similar regardless of the country you live in. One might complain that in a corrupt country you can’t get, let’s say, your food wholesale business off the ground because of corrupt officials blocking your way, but could you get a food wholesale business off the ground in Finland? Challenging the monopolies here is almost impossible so does it really matter if there is less corruption?
Comment by Andy Campbell — Sun, Sep 27th, 2009 @ 12:48 pm
I think there will be big changes to electoral funding imposed by a new law on the matter. The Greens have said such a law is essentially a condition of them staying in the government. And above and beyond that, both Centre and Kok are backing such an act as well. So, it seems highly likely that it will happen! The election campaign in 2011 will likely be far less intrusive in terms of adverts in newspapers and tv and so on, which perhaps is good news for all of us – except struggling media companies. The campaign will probably be extremely hard for party secretaries to run as the media will doubtless be watching as to where every single cent has come from.
One proposal that I hope is quickly dismissed is a change of the voting system to a list system (such as that used in Sweden), where the party HQ effectively gets to decide the order of its candidates elected. I think that would be a significant step backwards for democracy. This has been floated by some as a solution that would prevent the need for individual candidates to need to fund such a large campaign in order to try and influence whether they are elected or not.
Now to see whether Vanhanen will survive as prime minister. There are growls from some fairly prominent people inside the Centre party voicing dissatisfaction with him. But would they really want to get rid of him and open up a situation where perhaps Kokoomus could argue and take the position of PM? After all, they have the same number of parliament members. Who would replace him anyway within Centre? His greatest problem is possibly that Helsingin Sanomat seems to have decided it wants to get rid of him, so the negative media spotlight may be so unrelenting that he may have to go.
Comment by Jonas G — Sun, Sep 27th, 2009 @ 2:06 pm
I am so sick of matti vanhanen that it is not even funny.
First was the susan kuronen shit, then the fight over his privacy and now this.
He is always blaming other people for his problems. What a fucking loser.
Now he is saying that he shouldn’t be blamed for the scandal. What kind of a leader is he ? Everyone is guilty except for him
What a crock. I hope they kick his ass out and put someone there with real leadership skills
Comment by ben s — Sun, Sep 27th, 2009 @ 5:22 pm
Hey thats Keskusta politicians you know – slick with Tummeli. Or haven’t you forgotten Anneli Jäätteenmäki’s : “I’m being as trutful as I know how to be.”
Comment by Hank W. — Mon, Sep 28th, 2009 @ 5:20 am
I said on another forum that this sort of thing was already happening years ago, and I believe I got bullied & trolled by the author of this post.
Comment by rr — Fri, Feb 19th, 2010 @ 12:24 am