Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP and head of the parliament’s foreign affairs committee, Mika Nikko, resigned today after he tweeted that come Western leader should assure Russian President Vladimir Putin that Ukraine must not join Nato.
The tweet, which was in conflict with Finland’s foreign policy, was deleted. Even so, it had created quite a stir and it was in the evening when Niikko announced that he’d resign as chair of the foreign affairs committee.
Surprised?
Not at all. Nikko, who has made a name for himself from his homophobic and Islamophobic stances, was never cut for the job. There is speculation that former PS leader Jussi Halla-aho named him as a joke to the foreign affairs committee chair.
Apart from his close relations with China that pay his visits, Nikko recently created headlines when he contracted Corona and used parasiticides as medication.
However, today’s inappropriate Nato tweet was the stick that broke the camel’s back and reinforces that he is a loose canon.
The PS will decide on Thursday who will replace Nikko. Some possible candidates are PS chairperson Riikka Purra, MP Sakari Puisto, and Halla-aho.
Halla-aho would be one of the worse choices not only because he appointed Nikko as a joke to chair the committee but because the former PS chairperson has many skeletons in the closet.
In 2011, Halla-aho was temporarily banned from the party’s parliamentary group after he wrote on Facebook that the military junta could best solve the crisis in Greece by crushing protestors.
