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.
I don’t get it, why can’t people around the world vote in left wing anti-establishment parties when the status quo gets frustrating?
The far right time and time again have proven to be ineffective at their job and people get tired of them. But they can appeal to emotions?
Are the radical left really that boring? Is the message “for the people” not as sexy as “kill those who don’t look like us?”
Yeah. Once upon a time both were feared as massive threats to the established order, which was at that time still pretty empire-y. Now, there’s broad consensus that actually, Africans are people too, and that it’s good when there’s some social mobility. You’d expect classlessness and international siblinghood to be easier to sell because of that, but apparently not so.
Maybe it’s just the memory of the Cold War? Young people go left at least as much as right everywhere that I’ve heard of. On this side of the Atlantic there’s very little youth support for the far right, and it’s demographically evenly distributed in western Europe, while the hard left has youth support on both.
I’m really not good at the sales part, but I think if you want to hit the monkey brain you go for “eat the rich”.
The message “we could all share and the owner class might willingly transition to more circular/community-managed economies!” is not as sexy as “we’ll get
yoursforfrom you, 'cause we’re the best and we know you deserve to feel special!”people like the easy way out when both options sound plausible but one sounds like it probably has less steps and therefore might be easier to achieve (???)
who can really know where mental gymnastics are learned. surely they develop slowly over time, like any type of flexibility…
Hear me out.
Even left radicalism is kind of about - “Fuck those people” thinking. Instead of immigrants it’s the rich.
I want to know why this doesn’t seem as appealing as “I hate brown/muslim/black/even more than me poor people”.
I think it’s because of propoganda. The rich can pay for expensive ads and redirect anger. The facist target of the day can’t do this.
“for the people” is hard and requires work to solve some very tough problems that were put in our system many many years ago, that requires people to work to better the lives of others without seeing immidiate betterment themselves.
“fuck those other people” is a very very easy solution to a problem I may or may not have just made up.
Honestly, I feel like the far left skips over the hard and complicated stuff far too much as well, although that’s not why they’re polling behind.