The GREAT Election thread 2007

[Kassiopeia]

http://www.hs.fi/english/article/SUNDAY+EVENING+ELECTION+SPECIAL+-++YLE+PROGNOSIS++SUGGESTS+BIG+WIN+FOR+NATIONAL+COALITION+PARTY/1135225916469

SDP and lefties losing
Greens gaining a seat against all odds
Celebrity MPs

[Tattila the Hun]

Blah, I just voted for some young woman who looked nice, from Kemi. I don't even remember her name. Much good it does, it's allways some old commie geezers that get elected.

I consider my vote merely granting me the right to complain, when things go wrong, again.

[RGBVideo]

Re: The GREAT Election thread 2007

Originally posted by Pekka
National Coalition (conservative, major one)

I think a better description of the National Coalition would be that it's a coalition of conservatives and liberals. Voters aren't really afraid of the label "socialist" in Finland, apart from rural areas and small towns in the ultra-conservative Ostrobothnia-region. Voters, OTOH, are very afraid of the label "liberal", which is associated with neo-liberal = über-capitalist = slavery for people who aren't born rich. Neo-liberal is a wide-spread smear word in where I live, it's used by those same left-wing kids who believe Finland is still a class society where person born into lower class can't work himself into an upper one and who still use the word "bourgeoisie" seriously. Labeling one's own party "conservative" doesn't give a net gain of votes either, since half the country will run away from you if you use it.

Originally posted by Tattila the Hun
Blah, I just voted for some young woman who looked nice, from Kemi. I don't even remember her name. Much good it does, it's allways some old commie geezers that get elected.

I consider my vote merely granting me the right to complain, when things go wrong, again.

You have some very qualified and honest candidates in Lapland. Voting Left Alliance (hey Pekka, the official CIA translation of Vasemmistoliitto is "Left Alliance" [edit: dammit, they corrected themselves, it used to be "Leftist Alliance (COMMUNIST) two years ago in CIA factbook]) would be a no-brainer for me if I could've voted for E-J Tennilä.

Both mine and Kassi's votes went to waste because of too small electoral districts for our parties.

At least I'm not responsible for that clown, Arhinmäki, when he makes a fool out of himself in the parliament.

[RGBVideo]

Originally posted by Pekka
Also, first immigrant rep now becomes a fact. That's pretty nice, I think it's only good immigrants also have a person who got through and can have a voice.

There have been a lot of immigrant representatives in the Finnish parliament during the last sixty years. I believe Hella Wuolijoki was the first (elected 1946). What are you talking about?

[Nikolai]

GREAT election thread, eh?

Well, over here we have elections to the local authorities this autumn. I hope the government parties gets a solid red nose.

[RGBVideo]

It's "GREAT" because with the new constitution of 2000, parliament is practically wielding all the government power in Finland (well, not micromanaging municipal areas who have their municipal elections).

[BlackCat]

News here claims that vanhanen had great help from naughty stories from an old girlfriend though without getting into details.

Any finn here that can give details ?

[Pekka]

VJ, right, neo-liberal is a term I often bump into as well. The funny part is, when it's thrown around, people usually don't know what it means, except that it is negative and meant as an insult.

about immigrants, I guess I meant ethnic minority, but, it didn't happen.. she lost in the last minute.

BC, Well, it was a breakup between those two, and then the woman wanted to make some money out of the story. She was a nobody (still is), but she managed to be in the front page of tabloids for a long time by saying something about the PM (Vanhanen). She was all about conflicting stories like stating that she won't be in the public eye anymore, but the next thing you notice is she being in talk shows, women's magazines, writing a BOOK about it... they were together for 9 months, ok? That's it. The worst attention whore in the history of the press.

So sure, it kept Vanhanen in the headlines, but he did a smart thing, he never replied. He was just quiet, even though his characted was getting beaten. His defense was to ignore it. So people really got angry and tired of the girlfriend's daily ramblings, and Vanhanen got a lot of credit for taking all that crap and taking it well, without complaining or getting into it, by just ignoring it.

Of course, the beauty of the thing is, like minutes before the counting of the votes began, Vanhanen dropped in a request for investigation of the book she wrote, so the cops and the prosecutor are now looking into it . But he was quiet for months, and just few minutes, when it could not effect the votes anymore... he takes her down! Yeaah!!