The interesting matter to watch on election day is how well the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* will do and will it succeed in capturing undecided votes, which amount to about 40%, according to some predictions.
There is another matter that baffles some observers as well about the today’s election: Why does the PS continue to be the closet darling of the Finnish media even if the ballot box has shown different?
The top 10 anti-immigration and anti-cultural diversity MPs seeking reelection on Sunday are (top to bottom left to right): Timo Soini (PS), James Hirvisaari (Muutos 2011), Juho Eerola (PS), Teuvo Hakkarainen (PS), Pia Kauma (NCP), Päivi Räsänen (KD), Olli Immonen (PS), Maria Lohela (PS), Tom Packalén (PS) and Maria Tolppanen (PS). Don’t vote for these candidates because they are hazardous to migrants, minorities, Finns and Finland.
A good example of the latter is the latest opinion poll published this week by YLE, which showed the Center Party leading followed by the National Coalition Party, PS and Social Democratic Party.
In the latest poll the PS is predicted to win 16.7% of the vote even if the average votes it got in the last three elections after 2011 was 11.5%.
The media played a crucial role in turning the PS into the third-largest party in parliament four years ago and they are doing the same thing again. Apparently too many journalists from state-owned news companies like YLE see nothing wrong in the PS’ program, which excludes migrants, minorities and asks us to turn a blind eye to refugees in the name of petty provincialism.
True, the PS scored a historic victory in 2011 when it gained 19.1% of the vote (39 MPs) compared with 4.05% (5 MPs) in 2007. Even if the PS have fared well in opinion polls since 2011 their election results in the last three elections have lagged far behind what opinion polls predict.
In many respects the PS reminds me of the Green Party of the 1980s and early 1990s, when it did well in opinion polls but not on election day.
This may be the case of the PS today if the last three elections are any indication.
Today after 8pm will be wiser and know how Finland voted.
In the presidential election Timo Soini got 9.40% of the vote. The same happened in the municipal (12.3%) and EU elections (12.9%), a far cry from what it got in the 2011 election.
* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.
For the record, I may be voting for Kokoomus (National Coalition Party) in these elections instead of Perussuomalaiset, because Perussuomalaiset hasn’t shown enough interest for applying to join NATO. However, in most other issues Perussuomalaiset is much closer to my values than Kokoomus.
This wouldn’t be that radical change for me. After all, I have twice voted for a candidate with immigrant background (and both were even from Muslim background, although I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of them would be even atheist) even though I am against mass immigration.
If I vote for Kokoomus, I think I will be voting for Wille Rydman, although he might not be among those who will get enough votes to be elected. He seems to understand that large scale humanitarian immigration will cause too heavy cost to this society.
There is fake rape allegation being spreaded in the social media against Somalis, that three Somalis raped a native Finnish woman friday and so it e happens the story was Fake. The false story is started in hommaforum and MV websites continues to spread it despite police denying the whole story. Some people are accusing police to be lying about the case. Isnt this against the law…..this kind of fale accusation is starting to be very worrisome to us… i dont understand why nobody is speaking against this kind of witch hunt against Somalis I think Somalis should press charges against who ever is spreading these rumors,…Now because of this false rumors, some lunatic is going to attack innocent people minding their own business. This is getting dangerous!!!!!
Actually, on Hommaforum, there was quite quickly skepticism against this rumor. And the original source was not Hommaforum, but apparently some Facebook message. First message about this alleged incident at Hommaforum, was at 8:57 am. Among the first messages (at 10:01) there was the first message that urged caution and mentioned that so far, this rumor doesn’t have a reliable source. After that message, there was several messages that were skeptical about this rumor. At 11:12 the thread was locked as unreliable and it was opened again at 13:55 with the message from administrator that said that according to the police, the rumor is false.
On Hommaforum there is often much healthy skepticism and people there are willing to mention both positive and negative things. For example, when Arab Emirates published a list of Islamic organizations with connections to terrorism, one of the associations in Finland, was Suomen islam-seurakunta. This was noted on Hommaforum and quite quickly there was lots of skepticism that this must be some kind of error (like wrong translation) as Suomen islam-seurakunta is association for Tatar Muslims in Finland and it has long history without causing any problems.
On Hommaforum, Abdirahim, “Husu”, Hussein (who was also candidate on these elections) was also thanked recently for protecting the leader of Muutos 2011 party, who was approached in a threatening way by a certain candidate with immigrant background.
At this point, according to preliminary results, Wille Rydman from Kokoomus seems to be among those who will get elected and both Kokoomus and Perussuomalaiset will get 38 MPs and will share the place of second largest party. I am pretty pleased with this, although I wish that Keskusta wouldn’t be the bigest party.
I would also like to especially congratulate Nasima Razmyar, who also seems to be among those will be elected. I didn’t vote her or even her party, but I sincerely wish her long and successful career in politics and I wish she can be a great role model for for all, especially to other persons with immigrant background who at that point, don’t have that many good role models in Finland. Congratulations, from the bottom of my heart!
Update, according to new results, Perussuomalaiset will be the second biggest party, leaving Kokoomus and Social Democrats behind. This is quite exciting situation.