The Finns Vasarahammer

The Vasarahammer Report: The Disintegration of the Finns Party Part II…….


This is the sequel to yesterday’s post by Vasarahammer and myself.

UPDATE: Vasarahammer adds one more thought….

The one thing that is missing from that is the fact that Soini has never achieved anything worth mentionin on his own. He became a nationally known politician by piggybacking Tony “Viikinki” Halme, a former professional wrestler with the name Ludvig Borga. Halme was a lot more brazen when he talked about immigrants than Halla-aho. Yet Soini did not in any way condemn what Halme said.
When Jussi Halla-aho came along, Soini was far less enthusiastic. Soini knew that Halla-aho was intellectually brilliant, far more than Soini himself. He tried to belittle Halla-aho but ultimately had to concede that he needed the votes Halla-aho could bring. Of course, he never gave him credit for that.

Disintegration of the Finns party

The execution of the plan

On Monday June 12th Jussi Halla-aho was scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Juha Sipilä (Center Party) and Minister of Finance Petteri Orpo (National Coalition Party). The meeting took place at Kesäranta, the Prime Minister’s residence in Helsinki.

In that meeting Halla-aho stated that he would honor the agreements made by his predecessor in the party leadership and would require no changes to the government policy statement. He would, however, make sure that those issues in the statement that are important to the Finns party would be realized.

 

Regarding Timo Soini’s position as the Foreign minister Halla-aho had indicated that ”Soini should draw his own conclusions”. Halla-aho clearly wanted the long time leader of the party to leave his government position so he could install his own candidate to the post of Foreign minister. Halla-aho had also stated that he would remain as MEP and lead the party from Brussels until the next parliamentary election. Also, he would not take any position within the Sipilä government.

 

A short time afterwards the leaders of the Center Party and National Coalition party issued a joint statement indicating that cooperation with the Finns party led by Halla-aho would not be possible. In the press conference Prime Minister Sipilä said that it was not really the government policy statement that mattered but the fact that Halla-aho would lead his party from Brussels. Sipilä also stated that he would not like a change of personnel at the position of Foreign minister. Sipilä did not criticize Halla-aho’s person.

 

 

Finance minister Petteri Orpo, on the other hand, went on to speak about ”values”. He said that the values of Halla-aho and National Coalition Party are incompatible, so his party would not cooperate with the Finns party led by Halla-aho. Orpo’s moral posturing was nauseating. He was also Minister of Interior at the time of the migrant invasion and was at the time severely criticized for his lack of action.

 

The press conference led to intense speculation about what would happen next. At that point it looked like Sipilä would resign and new government would be formed. Sipilä could get the majority in two ways: either persuade the Social democrats to replace the Finns party or enlist the help of two minor parties Christian Democrats and Swedish People’s party who were eager to join Sipilä’s government. However, leader of the Social Democrats had indicated that he would not join any government unless there was a snap election immediately. The problem with the two minor parties was the fact that they would only provide a slim majority of 101 – 99. The media screamed that the government is in crisis. For an outsider Sipilä’s actions seemed insane. Why should he risk his government and use such flimsy excuses?

 

President of the republic, Sauli Niinistö intervened at this point to issue a statement, in which he wondered if Halla-aho and 2nd deputy leader Teuvo Hakkarainen had shown insufficient remorse after their convictions of hate speech. The president (who has a legal degree) used a legal term that was normally reserved for other types of crimes. In addition, it is not customary for the president who has no authority in the issue to intervene in party politics.

 

From crisis to farce

 

To the outside observer it looked like Sipilä’s and Orpo’s actions were stage-managed. They were following a script and there was nothing Halla-aho could have done to change their minds. Halla-aho’s terms were reasonable. He wasn’t asking too much. Why were they behaving like that?

 

Today it is a known fact that both Sipilä and Orpo as well as president Niinistö knew about Soini’s plan to create a splinter group from his loyalists. The only question was how many MP’s would join Soini, Jussi Niinistö and Sampo Terho.

Tuesday 13th June was the date of the first parliamentary group meeting for the Finns party since the election of Jussi Halla-aho as party chairman. This is the moment everything turns into a farce. 20 Finns party MP’s leave the room and later announce that they will form a new parliamentary group called Uusi Vaihtoehto (New Alternative).

 

At the same time Juha Sipilä is flying his jet to meet with president Sauli Niinistö at his summer residence in Naantali. In the middle of the route Sipilä turns back. The crisis is over and the meeting with the president was canceled. The government can continue but the Finns party will no longer be in it, but is replaced by the breakaway group of former Finns party parliamentarians including former party leader Soini, Jussi Niinistö and Sampo Terho.

 

Later Prime minister Sipilä burns the letter of resignation intended for the president in the fireplace at his Kesäranta residence. The whole thing looks like an episode in the House of Cards. There is nothing genuine in Sipilä’s and Soini’s charade except the hunger for power and money.

 

”The new alternative”

 

The name of the splinter group is funny in itself, since it consists of Soini loyalists whose political future is almost exactly two years long. Soini himself will get a cozy government job, probably as an ambassador and could not care less about the future of his pals in ”New alternative”.

 

Soini has destroyed his credibility altogether and everyone can see that he is only looking for a well-paid job before retirement. Few people today believe that his tenure in Sipilä’s government serves any other purpose than his own self-interest.

However, his stunt also destroyed the political careers of his loyalists. Why would they join Soini in his personal quest for money? Some of the loyalists probably know that their political future would be short anyway in a party led by Halla-aho. Sampo Terho said that the Finns party will never be in the government again if it is led by Halla-aho. But will anyone ever vote for them even if they defect to another party or start a new one as they have hinted? Are they paid for what they have done? Nobody knows but there is certainly something fishy in their behaviour.

 

It is telling that they sent two of their most inexperienced operatives in front of the cameras to tell bogus stories about Nazi salutes and death threats. The Finnish MSM joined their charade when it took seriously the claim about Nazi salutes like the taxpayer-funded Yle. They published a picture of the alleged Nazi salute. Later it turned out that the people in the picture were requesting permission to speak in the convention. The bogus claim was made by Tiina Elovaara who is a member of ”New Alternative”.

Soini, Vistbacka and their allies are now trying to create a narrative that the party was hijacked from them. There have been claims of a secret Facebook group to recruit new members for the party. The existence of the Facebook group and the two men behind it has never been proven. However, there had been an open campaign on the internet to oust Soini from his post for several months. When Soini decided not to run, the campaign changed its goal to making Halla-aho the new leader of the Finns party.

 

There is nothing wrong in running such a campaign. They are just normal political activism, but Soini and Vistbacka are trying to make it look like there is something wrong in that. Yle article from 3rd May tells us that Halla-aho’s candidacy in the leadership election did not cause exceptional rise in the membership applications. There is no evidence of anybody hijacking the party. Soini and Vistbacka simply don’t want to admit that the disillusionment with Soini and his cronies is the real reason behind their defeat.

 

Final act

 

There remains one thing that the current Finns party leadership must do, they must expel the members of the ”New Alternative” from the party. This will be carried out by the Finns party board which consists of the elected leaders, representative of the parliamentary group and five people elected by the party council.

 

There is a risk that party board will block the decision to expel the members of the ”New Alternative”. However, the people on the board are ordinary people with a sense of justice. They have witnessed Soini’s crookedness and the breaking of his promises. They will see through his lies and deceit. They will expel him and his loyalists.

 

The party rules don’t allow the existence of two separate parliamentary groups. Currently there are two groups: the official Finns party parliamentary group and the ”New Alternative”. There is money at stake, since the Finns party parliamentary group receives an annual party subsidy from the taxpayer to the amount of 5 million euros. If the party board would decide that ”New alternative” parliamentary group is actually the representative of the party, the money would go to Soini and his allies. Again this is unlikely, since nobody with any integrity would do that.

 

Inadvertently, Soini and his partners in crime have provided the Finns party with a new beginning. The rot has been squeezed out. They can start over without the baggage of Soini and his lot.

2 Responses

  1. So sad. So sad that Soini turned out to be seemingly interested solely in his own parliamentary career to the detriment of what is in the best interests of Finland.

    Venal politicians. Unfortunately they are everywhere.

    To quote something I read the other day: “A politicians is only interested in the next election. A statesman is interested only in the next generation.”

    And so sad that when you tell the truth, the jackals turn on you with legal actions due to hate speech.

    All so pathetic. Where will it all end?

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