Finland headed to the polls on Sunday to elect thousands of councillors in a range of local and regional bodies.
The Social Democrats took a big win in the municipal elections, taking nearly one in four votes nationwide to push the National Coalition Party of Prime Minister Petteri Orpo into second place.
In the county council elections, for 21 regional bodies that arrange social and healthcare outside Helsinki, the SDP also topped the poll. The Centre Party recorded a good result in its rural heartlands to secure third spot.
Government parties did poorly, with all but the NCP losing support compared to the previous municipal elections in 2021. Turnout in the municipal election was 54.2 percent, while the county elections saw 51.7 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots.
The dual vote for municipal and county councils caused logistical issues for election officials, with counting slower than usual for Finland, where large numbers vote in advance and results are usually clear within a couple of hours of polls closing.
The Finns Party saw support collapse compared to the last municipal election, with the party nearly halving its vote from four years ago. They lost support in several towns that are seeing hospital services cut back as part of the central government’s savings drive.
As a German, I can assure you that this strategy only works in Finland. Forming a coalition with Nazis brought Germany the Nazi dictatorship and World War II.
Luckily, the far-right here in Finland is less extreme than some of their counterparts in Europe. Finns Party members aren’t literal Nazis (or at least most of them aren’t), and some media outlets, including Yle, usually refuse to label them as far-right at all. Personally, I’m of the opinion that in the context of the Nordics, being far-right doesn’t necessarily mean you’re full-blown Nazi and that’s why I editorialized the title a bit.
Not a “full-blown Nazi”, and not even “far-right” by the public service broadcasting, in the nordic countries also includes people who were nazi skinheads, wrote celebratory opinions about literal Nazis, photographed themselves with literal Nazis, joined Nazi parties started by literal Nazis, sings Nazi songs, are personal friends with well recognized Nazi music groups, as long as you deny it ever happened. Just to give some context.
Just the one or two who call themselves nazis
Good point. Though I wonder how much is due to Hitler being chancellor and Goering the minister president of Prussia.
Their coalition partner was also a far right party. They were monarchist for the most part, but that still made them anti democratic. Hence the German democracy was dead very quickly. The other Finnish parties in the coalition were not even close to as radical and even the Finn Party never seriously tried to destroy democracy.
He’s talking about when they’re still small (e.g. 1928) Not forming a coalition when they’ve grown to a significant portion of the seats (1930 onwards).
In most countries, the established parties are so reactionary to the prospect of a far-right party growing that they normally fight to exclude such a party from even the tiniest bit of power. This drives the narrative of a corrupt undemocratic system full of people desperately clinging to power. Once that starts it’s only a matter of time before enough people believe it, elect a dictator, and only then understand what undemocratic looks like.