Finland will hold parliamentary elections on Sunday. One of the interesting question marks is who will come in second or third place. One poll predicts the Center Party winning (no surprise) with the National Coalition Party (NCP) and Perussuomalaiset (PS)* coming in second and third, respectively. The Social Democrats are in fourth place.
During the last four years since the 2011 parliamentary elections, Migrant Tales has written a lot about Finland’s anti-immigration politicians. Toping the list with flying colors are MPs and politicians of the PS.
One important matter to keep in mind, however, is that intolerance to Others isn’t only a PS thing but takes place in all Finnish parties. If you were a migrant or minority searching for a political party that could represent you in Finland, the way you’d go about this is by asking which party is the least racists.
One good example of a party constantly vacillating on immigration is the Social Democratic Party. It chairman Antti Rinne said in a recent debate that he would be in favor of having in force stricter language requirements on migrants. This would mean in effect that employers would be encouraged to hire white Finns in place of migrants.
The argument that Finns should receive preferential treatment over migrants in the job market is a common anti-immigration argument used by the PS as well.
In light of the parliamentary elections, the Red Cross asked Finland’s parties in parliament if they supported offering health care to undocumented migrants. All political parties except for two agreed that undocumented migrants should receive health care: the PS and Muutos 2011.
