A total of 234 Euro election candidates answered Alma Media’s election compass, a total of 85 (36.3%) stated that they either “strongly disagree,” “disagree” or are “neutral” (have no opinion) about the following claim:
“Is it the obligation of the EU to save all those migrants who attempt to come to Europe and who are at risk of drowning in the Mediterranean?”
Of those parties that have a seat in the Finnish parliament, all of the 19 Perussuomalaiset (PS)* candidates strongly disagreed, disagreed or were neutral about the above claim. That was followed by the National Coalition Paty (9/45% of candidates), Center Party (7/35%), Swedish People’s Party (4/20%), Christian Democrats (4/20%) and the Social Democrats (1/6.3%).
Dark green, fully agree; light green, agree; grey, neutral/no opinion; red, disagree; dark red, totally disagree. SDP = Social Democrats; Kokoomus = National Coalition Party; Keskusta = Center Party; Cihreät= Green League; Vasemmistoliitto = Left Alliance; RKP = Swedish People’s Party; Kristillisdemokraatit = Christian Democrats. Source: Iltalehti.
Of the parties mentioned above, 44/152 (28.9%) disagreed or were neutral about people drowning in the Mediterranean.
Smaller parties, which do not have representation in parliament, were more critical. Fifty percent of their candidates “totally disagreed,” “disagreed” or were “neutral” about saving people’s lives in the Mediterranean.
The worst of these were the Liberals (7/100%), Finland First (13/86.6%), Seitsemän ähden liike (11/64.7%), Blue Reform (4/57.1%), Pirates (4/40%) and Animal Reform Party (1/20%).
The candidates of the parties that did agree with the statement were: Left Alliance, Green League, Feminist Party, and the Communist Party.
* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13, 2017, into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. In the last parliamentary election, Blue Reform has wiped off the Finnish political map when they saw their numbers in parliament plummet from 18 MPs to none. A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.