On behalf on the majority that did not vote for this government, I want to apologize. We are not happy either and will try to do better next time.
Meanwhile enjoy this preview picture of a Fazer chocolate chocolate bar with custom text on it. I can not afford to actually send you one.
Strongly caricatured answer:
Current parliament in Finland is leaning heavily right related to previous ones. Which in American context would mean roughly that our political field is centrist, leaning slightly to the left, as your system is way more broken than ours (of course I’m looking things from this side of the pond so I might be biased about this).
The biggest party Kokoomus is traditonally aligned with corporates and free markets with less concern about worker rights and other ‘soft’ values. The second is Perussuomalaiset who gained support by promising to cut immigration, lower fuel prices and a lot of other mostly populist and ‘cheap’ anecdotes without a lot of actual means to achieve their goals.
The smaller parties included are Kristillisdemokraatit who don’t seem to care much about anything else than the Bible and their interpretation of it and Swedish national party who seem to only care about rights of swedish speaking people and their language in Finland.
Some portion of the people seem to think that the current coalition will end free health care and education, destroy worker rights and unions and cripple our society which is known to take care of the poor people and those who can’t take care of themselves.
The truth is most likely somewhere in between. Our political system doesn’t give absolute power to anyone for multiple reasons and the leftist parties still have their ~30% of our parliament, so even if some of the more extreme changes would come to the table as is they would most likely be diluted at least somewhat before they come into reality.
I personally would have liked a different composition for our parliament after the covid and start of Ukrainian war, but I don’t think it’ll be a complete disaster either.
Yeah, I’m not so worried the actual policies they are trying to make. The opposition is strong and the goverment parties are in a really forced alliance with a lot of disagreement.
This post was mostly just about the public embarrassments, NCP whining they are not allowed as an official partner of Pride when some of their representatives just voted against the trans rights bill, Finns failing to find representable office holders amongst them and Christian Democrats just doing what they always do, that just keep coming.
The Swedish People’s Party is just happy to be included and will work with anyone for a spot in the government. While having a reputation of only pushing the swedish language, they are actually competent and the current Minister of Education has been the longest-serving Minister of Justice.
It sounds like your right is probably our center, as you’re concerned about losing free health care and education. Our student loans are out of control and health insurance can be anywhere between $0 and $1000 per month depending on your employer and the plan. My son is trying to pay off a $5k appendectomy because he didn’t have insurance.