The Perussuomalaiset (PS)* is the first modern Finnish party to capitalize politically on Finland’s Islamophobic and anti-immigration sentiment. With parliamentary elections around the corner on April 14, the question is if the PS will get a boost from the sexual assault cases of Oulu?
Another question is the Blue Reform Party, which split from the PS in June 2017. Will Oulu give it political capital as the PS is hoping?
Considering that the Blue Reform Party have about 2% support in diffrent opinion polls, it is unlikely that will pose a threat in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
The PS’ toxic Islamophobic rhetoric and fear-mongering were important factors that helped it to secure its historic parliamentary election victory of 2011, when it won 39 seats from 5 seats in 2007.
Four years later, in 2015, the PS got a boost from a widely covered sexual assault case about a month before the parliamentary elections. The case, which happened in the Helsinki neighborhood of Tapanila, sparked lynch-mob hysteria and fingerpointing on social media and in print media.
The PS became in 2015 with 39 seats the second-biggest party in parliament.
Like before and today, the reporting by the media of sexual assault cases by foreigners is the same: It paints all migrants with a single brush and spreads stereotypes made by Islamophobes and racists. One of these is that sexual assault crimes soared after 2015 when over 30,000 asylum seekers came to the country.
But charts like the one below tell a totally different story than what groups like the PS and politicians of mainstream parties are telling their voters.
