Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Löfven said in Yle said that just because a far-right party like the Sweden Democrats get 17.5% of the votes in an election, it does not mean an automatic ticket to government.
“I cannot accept a party [Sweden Democrats] that does not recognize human rights as inseparable,” he was quoted as saying in Yle, “and which sees the Saami and Jews as not Swedes. It’s impossible. Everyone has equal human dignity [and] we cannot give in an inch to that principle.”
I hope Finland’s new prime minister, Antti Rinne, was listening to Löfven’s interview.
The fact that an Islamophobic party like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* came in second in Finland’s April 14 elections should not entitle them to form part of the government.
Why should we accept racism, misogyny, and parties that have disdain for human rights? We should show such parties like the PS the door or the cold dark place of the opposition.
The sooner we start to see the PS as an extremist far-right party, the better for our democracy.
Disagree?
Look at the election compass result below for MEP candidates of each party.
When asked if migrants should be left to drown in the Mediterranean, the PS was the only party where about 90% agreed or strongly agreed that they should be left to die. About 20% of MEP candidates of the National Coalition Party and Center Party agreed with the PS.
Do you want such a party in government to erode our last shred of respect for human rights and human dignity?
The EU must save all those of risk of drowning who attempt to migrate to Europe. From left to right (dark green) fully agree, agree, no opinion, disagree, totally disagree. Read the full story (in Finnish) here. Warning: If we can, we try to avoid citing tabloids like Iltalehti and Ilta-Sanomat because of their sensationalist and racist present and past history. I strongly believe that they should apologize for such writings.
Keep these important points below when you vote on for an MEP on May 23-26.
* 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.