Finnish politics

OK, one note about protest voting.

There are four ways to vote in protest:

1. Vote for a candidate that is as far from everyone else as possible - like when people voted the heavy-weight boxer Tony Halme into Parliament. This sends the message that you disapprove of everyone else, but it might also send the message that you approve of the person you voted for (obviously in the hope that they won't pass) and if that's not the case, don't go this route.

2. Draw something or vote for Donald Duck or stuff like that. This, if you ask me, is tied for the worst way to protest. These aren't counted in some "protest" category: they're registered in the category that also includes ballots where the vote counters couldn't tell what number was supposed to be in the ballot. If you draw a number wrong or insert a number that isn't assigned to a candidate (like 0, 1 or 999999,) it's handled in exactly the same way as "Donald Duck" or a drawing of a dick is. So whatever number of votes like this there are, the parties aren't going to take that as a hint that they're not presenting options; they'll interpret it as people drawing their numbers wrong.

3. Don't vote. This lowers the voter turnout and politicians usually interpret this as apathy rather than protest; so this is the other option that I think is tied for the worst alternative. (By the way, the first round of the Presidential election had a voter turnout of something like 73%, which is a scandal. After a Parliamentary election with just over 70%, you'd expect the Presidential election to get 80% at the very least.)

4. Vote, but submit a blank card. These are handled differently from the other uncounted votes. A blank card is registered as a protest, and it's the only officially recognised way to protests that no political party even tries to interpret as something else than a protest. This is what I would've done if I there hadn't been a good option for me on the second round.

edited 21st Jan '14 6:50:03 AM by BestOf

So you don't have a "none of the above" category? I've heard that that works quite well in some countries. As it's a good way to let people officially register annoyance without mixing up protest votes with spoiled ballots (be they blank or have Donald Duck drawn on them)

We should have that, but we don't.

I'm quite happy with elections considering that only thing I wanted that neither Soini nor Väyrynen gets a chance

I like both of two, with Niinistö my only problem is that I don't like his political party(though he lowered the spending of politicians into meaningless stuff or at least commented on it, so that kinda lessens that), but Finnish elections are "henkilövaalit" and not "puoluevaalit" however you translate that to english =P

"You vote for the person, not the party" or so.

Yeah, that.

Anyway, I don't like Kokoomus because I hate automatically any princible that involves protecting rights of people with more wealth as that usually involves doing it over right of other people, but Niinistö did reduce politicians doing luxury flights to save money, so I guess hes okay.

I went to a Haavisto campaign meeting today, I'm going to be a bit active during the second round, volunteering and stuff. We might have a fighting chance. My line for my more strictly left wing comrades is "Even if you don't love Pekka, at least you hate Sauli".

Guido Westerwelle has represented Germany, with his husband in many countries, including Saudi-Arabia, without incidents.

True. He has damaged Germany's reputation by being a very weak and somewhat incompetent foreign minister, but his sexual orientation indeed has nothing to do with it (in fact, considering under how much criticism he and his parties have been the recent two years, I was positively surprised this was brought up practically nowhere, not in media and not even in internet comments). But the point is I think in modern European countries gay politicians are no problem anymore, not even in doing work with, ah, less enlightened countries.

I went to the local office of the Green party here. I asked if they had any brochures for Haavisto that I could distribute around where I live, but they were all out, what with having just finished the campaign for the first round.

They're getting new ones tomorrow, so I'm going to pick some up and distribute them around my part of town.

edited 21st Jan '14 6:50:13 AM by BestOf

Heh, feels like I'm the only one who will support Niinistö.

Still, if Haavisto wins then so be it. It just means majority of the finnish people consider him better for the job. No doubt he too can be good figurehead.

Since the presidential elections have activated this thread again, I'll start asking the people here some political questions not related to the elections.

What is your stance on drugs, and what would be the ideal drug policy for Finland in your opinion? I am personally in favour of us having a drug policy similar to what Portugal has (decriminalizing drug usage and possession of drugs) and making marihuana completely legal. I personally do not use marihuana or think of it highly, but it is hardly more dangerous than alcohol, and I already see enough alcohol-related trouble and fights in my work (I work as a bouncer besides studying.).

I might have asked this before, but what is your stance on having a guaranteed minimum income instead of the current byzantine social security system that we currently have to deal with? I personally am moderately in favour of a guaranteed minimum income, provided that it does not become more expensive than our current system.

Let's hear what you guys think.

About drugs: I'd ban all of them, marijuana included. Only wayto gain access to them would be trough medication and if someone is issued them, there should very strickt surveilance that things don't go overboard.

Minimun income: I'm for it, of course it needs to be defined so that its cost does not exceed current system and it must be easier to approach. Current system is one nightmare to get anything done.

I'd ban smoking and alcohol too, but that would be political suicide

Decriminalize drug use and posession, lighter drugs could be legalized, and/or given something of a Alko equivalent. Narko? Yeah, maybe not.

Let's make marijuana legal but only available through Alko.

Guaranteed minimum income is something we definitely should have instituted 30 years ago. According to some of the material I've seen on it from my party (Left Alliance,) a program like that would cost less than the current social security apparatus.

I'd legalise the less harmful drugs and then tax the hell out of them (and I include the already legal drugs, meaning tobacco and alcohol in that). Also much harsher punishments for people who DUI or do anything else under influence that might harm someone.

On a more general note (Couldn't find this thread easily; had to site-search it) what's the state of the economy like in Finland at the moment? How badly affected was it by the recession?

Haven't seen it's effects in my personal life, but I'm a fairly healthy student with parental support, so who am I to speak? I haven't followed the media much recently, but what I have seen/read the economic talk is mostly about the rest of Europe, and how much should we be supporting it.

Finland's economy has been suffering a lot recently when corporations like Nokia take their manufacturing and these days even their R&D overseas, giving the boot to thousands of people at a time. That's intensified during the recession.

The purchasing power of the middle class and especially the lower middle class has fallen during this recession, which has of course deepened it.

Still, Finland is doing OK. We're doing some austerity and hopefully we'll soon be doing some stimulus spending, too.

We're giving huge amounts of money to Portugal and Greece, IIRC much more than we're spending on national defence (for one example.) That said, most of that money hasn't actually left Finland - we've agreed to loan dough to Greece and the European Financial Stability Mechanisms, but that doesn't mean that we've had to give those loans yet - most of the money is set aside but hasn't been used.

Finland's future doesn't look very bright ATM, but we'll probably pick up pretty well once the rest of the Eurozone gets things going right.

Starting to look better actually.

If somebody's still reading this, I'd like to bring out few things: The NC is more and more becoming something of a hybrid of classical liberal and progressive liberal party. It still has some old patriotic and nationalistic bats left... but they're starting to fade out.

The one true classical liberal party we have is the swedish thing. They actually have pretty good ideas most of the time.

Christian Democrats and the True Finns are probably the closest we have towards far right going on around here.

The supposed liberal (the centre party) party acts like conservative agrarian one while seemingly getting a bit more liberal, and the democrats are... I don't think anyone is quite sure about what they're about anymore these days.

I wanted, as a self-professed liberal with no bias (except against the nationalistic freaks) towards any party in general, to remind that things aren't nearly as bleak as some people with more profound ideologies seem to think.

We are on our way to equal marriage now!

This isn't political, but can someone from Finland tell me how accurate this◊ is?

Very. I mean, due to its rather violent nature it is not used in every situation, but it is the closest equivalent for "fits like a glove" I can think of.

You should hear the Icelandic equivalent: "It fits like a splinter against the ass".

x3

Very true.