Most of True Finn members racist, study finds

According to an opinion poll published in Helsingin Sanomat, a majority True Finn supporters agree with the following statement:

"People of certain races are unsuited for life in a modern society."

Another opinion poll by Taloustutkimus published in Iltalehti found that 72% of True Finn supporters want Finland to stay in the Eurozone, and a similar percentage want them to remain in the European Union.

Timo Soini, Leader of the True Finns, looking awkward

So what are we to make of this? Clearly the eurosceptic aspect of the True Finn party is greatly exaggerated. It seems to not be the major driving force behind the party. We can certainly draw some conclusions about the motivations of the "Immigration Critical" wing of the party, led by blogger and popular racist Jussi Halla-aho.

The President of Finland, Tarja Halonen commented on the findings of the poll by saying that racist people "seem to be drawn towards voting for the True Finns." MP Jussi Halla-aho was quick to point out on his blog that "Friends of GDR seem to be drawn towards voting for Tarja Halonen." President Halonen, a Social Democrat, has been elected President twice after previously serving in three ministerial posts and consistently gets an approval rating in excess of 80%, while MP Halla-aho has an illustrious two year career in the board of directors for Helsinki Zoo.

Leader of the True Finn party, Timo Soini has thus far declined to comment, saying that opinion polls are not a good gauge of opinion and re-iterating his previous stance of not personally being racist. For someone non-racist he certainly likes to actively seek out the company of racists. He also leads an organisation that plainly caters to racists and does not mind benefiting from racists voting for his party. One can assume that either he is lying about not being racist or (more likely) he is morally corrupt to the point of having no guiding principles in his political life and will seize on to any idea no matter how abhorrent if it gets his party a few extra votes. Does it make him any different from other politicians? Maybe not. Call me an idealist but surely the point of leading a political party vanishes if the program of the party consists only of an attempt to get as many votes as possible.

Timo Soini on Fox News

Timo Soini got interviewed on the fair and balanced Fox News last week. If you want to hear what a thick Finnish accent sounds like you might be a bit interested. Don't get your hopes up for great political genius though.

True Finn MP's assistant in a neo-nazi row

Looks like the parliamentary assistant to True Finn MP Juha Eerola has applied to become a member of the neo-nazi group Finnish National Resistance Front. Assistant and apparently then city council member Ulla Pyysalo's application, leaked by hackers, goes as follows (translation from migrant tales):

I am a city council member of the Perussuomalaiset party and I understand your ideology. You have my support!!!…After you hear what we (Perussuomalaiset?) have planned, (you’ll see that) we are both fighting for the same thing…I sent you my contact information. Please do not distribute it if you are fighting for the fatherland.

Pyysalo has since said, she will resign her membership in the True Finn party, after she finds another job. The True Finn party is currently considering suspending her from the duties of a parliamentary assistant. That's nice.

Ulla Pyysalo, looking like a less classy Johanna Tukiainen

The word neo-nazi is sometimes used rather frivolously, but the National Resistance Front has conveniently declared itself to be a National Socialist revolutionary movement. Pyysalo claims she did not in fact realise that national socialists are the same thing as nazis, was drunk as she applied to join the group, it was a youthful error and she did so because she is quote a patriotic person unquote. Being unaware of recent history, current events and basic politics is basically a requisite of membership for the True Finns, so let's just give her the benefit of doubt for now. Youthful error is a bit amusing since the webpage where she applied has only existed for two years. Pyysalo has previously made herself known by cracking unrepeatable jokes about Jani Toivola (a black, gay finnish MP) and posing with an assault rifle on Facebook.

MP Jussi Halla-aho's racist webforum Homma has of course reacted by thinking this was all perfectly understandable, that Pyysalo was actually an upstanding person and that this was all media's fault for reporting it. In other words, exactly as they react to every other far-right lunatic ever.

James Hirvisaari: No Viet Cong ever called me Persu

True Finn first term MP and a prominent signer of Jussi Halla-aho's racist election manifesto, James Hirvisaari has shocked but not surprised people with his recent blog post. James Hirvisaari says it is equally bad to call someone as "persu" (a name for the True Finn party, derived from the Finnish name PerusSuomalaiset) as it is to call someone a nigger or a yid. He also proceeds to call all reporters vultures and scavengers, and goes on to state that the media is out to get him and all other True Finn speakers of truth. On his blog. Which is hosted on the server of the newspaper Uusi Suomi.

persu party member James "persu" Hirvisaari

MP Hirvisaari's angry blog post comes right after the Finnish broadcaster YLE's "Hate Night Special" where they discussed hate speech. Evidently James Hirvisaari thinks it terribly unfair to only focus on the party which keeps spouting racist crap, when the topic of discussion is racist crap being spouted by politicians. The comments also come after the setting out of internal True Finn party guidelines on banned words. The guidelines contain a list of words to avoid, some of which James Hirvisaari chose to use in his blog post.

The True Finn parliamentary group leader, and one of the few two-term True Finn MPs Pirkko Ruohonen-Lerner was reportedly 'frustrated' over Hirvisaari's remarks. She goes on to state there are vastly more important things to focus on, such as increased regional taxes. There is of course support for James Hirvisaari among fellow MPs. Having recently been expelled from the True Finn parliamentary group for calling for a military coup in Athens, MP Jussi Halla-aho compared the ongoing hate speech discussion to a "rise of a totalitarian, orwellian atmosphere in Finland." The irony remains duly lost on all his followers.

Regardless of what your political outlook might be, comparing someone using a word you don't like for your party to a racial slur is extraordinarily thin-skinned. Even more so when the vast majority of your own supporters think it a neutral term, if somewhat informal. Moreover the timing of the whole thing just shows an amazing degree of political insensitivity, coming just days after MP Halla-aho was temporarily expelled from the party over a Facebook post. It could of course be a part of a brilliant master plan by the Halla-ahonist fringe of the True Finn party, in which case all the co-signers of the racist election manifesto, James Hirvisaari, Olli Immonen and Juha Eerola, take turns to say racist stuff to get expelled. Brilliant is probably the wrong word to use though, it's all degrees of stupidity with these people.

Jussi Halla-aho expelled from True Finns

According to Uusi Suomi, leader of the True Finn party Timo Soini has proposed expelling blogger and popular racist Jussi Halla-aho from the party. This came after Jussi Halla-aho proposed replacing the Greek government with a military junta on his Facebook page. Here's a translation of the relevant post:

Simple fact is that democracy (=elections) prevents any political government to take such action as to be really "effective" in solving the bankrupt Greek economy problem. Right now what is needed is a military junta that could use tanks to force the strikers and rioters into submission.

Jussi Halla-aho later tried to play his post off as some kind of a joke, but it was too late. True Finn parliamentary group leader, Pirkko Ruohonen-Lerner confirmed that expelling Jussi Halla-aho as a "temporary measure" is "very likely." There has been speculation among followers of Finnish politics that this has to do with internal strife in the True Finn party, between Timo Soini's eurosceptic loonies and Jussi Halla-aho's racist loonies. Timo Soini, numerous as his other faults may be, is not actually racist and this move to disassociate his party from the most strident voice in the racist fringe was a long time coming.

Soon-to-become-irrelevant MP Jussi Halla-aho

It is generally assumed, that Jussi Halla-aho will be followed by his loyal cadre from radical racist Suomen Sisu. James Hirvisaari, Olli Immonen and Juha Eerola are all members of the movement, and will probably form a separate racist parliamentary group with their dear leader. This will spell the end of the extreme racist fringe playing any potentially major part in Finnish politics, so it's a cause for great celebration! I have a feeling things actually took a turn for the better today.

UPDATE 14:28: Jussi Halla-aho's expulsion from the True Finn parliamentary group was just confirmed in an unanimous decision. He is currently expelled for two weeks. This will probably not affect the bulk of his actual work in the parliament much, but he is unable to attend meetings of the True Finn parliamentary group.

True Finn MP plays the Nazi card

You all might remember the quote "Whenever I hear the word culture, I reach for my gun." It's frequently misattributed to Hermann Goering, but it actually comes from a pro-nazi play called Schlageter. People usually quote this to point out the brutality and violence of the national socialist regime, well normal people do that. True Finn MP Jussi Niinistö whom I've blogged about before apparently uses the phrase completely without irony.

Jussi Niinistö, you can't see his hands but they're reaching for his gun

Helsingin Sanomat reported that in a parliamentary session this Tuesday, Jussi Niinistö said he is a strong proponent of expanded presidential powers, and that "whenever I hear the word parliamentarism, I reach for my gun". Let's just re-iterate that this quote is frequently raised as an example of the despicable brutality of the nazi regime, it's certainly not a phrase that is in common use in Finland and would probably be in itself enough to send you to prison in Germany. Needless to say, this caused quite a bit of a scene in the session, and probably will haunt mr Niinistö for months to come.

Timo Soini takes a stand against fearmongering

The leader of the anti-European True Finn party Timo Soini has commented on what he calls "unnecessary fearmongering" concerning the Finnish government's plans for demanding collateral for the Greek government loan. Giving his full support to the government policy, the pudgy populist said he sees "no way" for the Greek government to pay off its €110 billion loan. His solution for the European soveireign debt crisis is simple: someone else, hopefully Germany, should take care of it.

Timo Soini

Timo Soini has recently called on the government to abandon the support for Greece entirely, citing German resistance to the Finnish-Greek collateral deal as an "ideal opportunity to say No thank you, we're out." On his uusisuomi blog, Soini also suggested that a permanent bailout mechanism would in fact create a system for supporting French and German banks using taxpayer money from other countries.

This kind of lack of any solution is proof positive that the True Finns did the absolute right thing when they didn't form a coalition government with National Coalition party this year. As an opposition party they can do what they do best: kick up dust and claim you can succesfully ignore problems until they go away. It's no wonder the True Finns are currently the most popular party among the ignorant many. Oh well, they have proven time and again that they are all bark and no bite, and if they manage to topple Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen's government we are in for endless entertainment. This won't be the issue that does it, however.

True Finns changes its official English name

Helsingin Sanomat reported today the True Finn party has now adopted "The Finns" as their official English name. True Finn leader Timo Soini is reportedly tired of having to re-translate his party name for foreign media to avoid being associated with nationalist extremism. Soini also likes "The Finns" because it is short and simple and even ordinary people his supporters will know how to write it.

Timo Soini, leader of the Finns

Ok well, first of all if you want to avoid sounding nationalist "The Finns" is probably not the best idea for a name. I imagine if there was such a thing as "The English Party", it would get lots of skinhead members really fast. Secondly, this would probably cause all manner of difficulty for reporters worldwide as they will presumably have to report the Finnish parliamentary opposition as consisting of "The Finns" and also the Centre party. Yeah, if I was a real journalist I would in all likelihood stick with True Finns. True Finns will do for this blog.

A True Finn member comments on the London Riots

Petri Kivikangas, a True Finn from Espoo Finland posted this thoughtful musing titled "Race riots in Britain" on his Uusisuomi blog.

Lately I've been following the fall of the current economic system with great interest. It has been just as interesting to follow the events unfold in Britain, especially since the Media seeks to avoid reporting certain things. We are seeing a resurgence of terms familiar from their reporting of immigrant-related crimes in Malmö. Such as 'youth', which I assume means the children of a certain immigrant group that is historically unable to integrate into society. You can verify this for yourself by looking at photos from the scene.

It's likely there will be once more people to understand these 'youths' as victims of society. In that case it needs to be asked why disaffected youth from other ethnic groups aren't looting and wrecking places in the same way? 

Actually, I'm just so numbed to this reporting, I can't be bothered to write a more in depth analysis. If people's eyes haven't been opened yet by events in other countries such as France and Sweden, this will not open their eyes either.

http://birminghamriots2011.tumblr.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14450248

This shouldn't really surprise me after all I've posted about the True Finn racists, but it still does. Do I need to remind you this is the same party that said criticising Jussi Halla-aho after the Norway Shootings was distasteful? Here they are, blaming a whole race of people for a riot, in the year 2011. What a class act.

Halla-aho compares own supporters to Jihadists

In a typically peculiar statement to news agency AFP, True Finn MP Jussi Halla-aho has apparently compared his supporters to terrorists engaged in a holy war against the west. Iltalehti reports that Halla-aho thinks there is at present a witch-hunt against his supporters and free speech in general. Let's just quote the statement as reported by Iltalehti.

"In politics, as well as in political grassroots organisations, there have long been voices that try to suppress free speech. The attacks in Norway have given them a new weapon to use. There is no doubt that the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center in September 2001 got their inspiration from the Koran and Islamist web pages, but nobody is trying to ban the Koran or shut down jihadist web pages."

Jussi Halla-aho then goes on to state that he agrees with Anders Behring Breivik's interpretation of his blog posts. He was quoted in the Norwegian mass murderer's 1500 page manifesto, specifically his post about the supposed leftist collusion with militant Jihadists.

"Yeah, I guess my supporters are kinda like terrorists when you think about it"

What are we to make of this? Well, firstly Jussi Halla-aho seems to live in some strange alternate reality, where there aren't politicians all over Europe trying to ban the Qur'an, and where various government agencies don't routinely try to take suspected terrorist material off the internet. Secondly, he thinks his blog is as relevant of a cultural contribution as the Qur'an. He has always been smug and pretentious, but has not come across as delusional before this. I'm guessing he is more shaken up by one of his internet disciples shooting a bunch of people than he lets on.

Helsingin Sanomat reports on Jussi Halla-aho's connection to Counter-Jihad Movement

In the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat today, True Finn blogger and popular racist, MP Jussi Halla-aho answered to questions concerning his involvement with radical anti-islam "counter-jihad" bloggers and activists. Halla-aho said he is an occasional reader of the racist blog "Gates of Vienna". The blog in question lists MP Halla-aho as a correspondent, the same status awarded to the infamous anonymous blogger "Fjordman", who is also quoted extensively in the Norwegian shooter's manifesto, to the point that Fjordman was actually suspected of being Anders Behring Breivik!

Jussi, 40 "My style icons include the Unabomber and the Michigan Militia Movement"

When asked to clarify what being a correspondent meant, Jussi Halla-aho reportedly screamed at the reporter and hung up. Administrators at the Gates of Vienna blog refused to comment on MP Halla-aho's involvement with the blog. Halla-aho later denied shouting at the reporter in a post in his racist webforum Homma, but Helsingin Sanomat says they have recorded the actual call. Gotta love journalists who actually get their job done! (Murdoch take note)

Halla-aho's flavour of anti-immigrationism has generally been under fire since the Norway attacks, with the popular soap box Uusisuomi closing down a whole bunch of loony right-wing blogs. Halla-aho has been opinionating a lot this past week for people to not judge all hate talk on the basis of one crazy individual. Why, some people are even saying racist lunatics shouldn't even have guns! A very bad week for halla-ahonists all around.

Jussi Halla-aho's racist webforum closed down after Norway massacre

Looks like True Finn MP Jussi Halla-aho's racist webforum Homma has been shut down for today, following the news about mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik's email to True Finn MPs being picked up by several media sources. It is of course possible that the two things are not related, and that the webforum administrator just wants to quote "have 14 hours of silence in memory of the victims" but it still seems like an odd thing to do. There is also a message about an update on the website for Suomen Sisu, the interesting 'nationalist' group Jussi Halla-aho is a member of.

Meanwhile Halla-aho revealed to tabloid Iltalehti that he has in fact read the manifesto, and critiqued it for containing too much "Christian fundamentalism" and being "very confusing." Maybe he read the whole 1500-page manifesto during the 24 hours it's been available online? He is a doctor after all. In fairness, the manifesto does include in it a lot of text from various anti-islam bloggers, with whom Halla-aho may already be familiar. More entertainingly, in far-out conspiracy world, he might even be one of the far-right individuals who met in London 2002, who included the Utøya killer Anders Behring Breivik? Only time will tell.

Norway mass murderer emailed True Finn MPs

According to Iltalehti, a True Finn regional leader Terhi Kiemunki, and several MPs of the True Finn party received an email from the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik just hours before the shooting. The email reportedly contained the far-right murderer's 1500 page anti-immigrant manifesto and was titled "The Islamisation of Western Europe and the status of the European Resistance Movements." The message also contained several photographs of the mass murderer, dressed in military gear and posing with various firearms.

What a sensible looking young man, our party members will love this!

Mrs Kiemunki proceeded to do the smart thing, and forwarded the manifesto to her entire mailing list. "It looked like it was about Islam, and we have a lot of people who are researching that kind of stuff," she explained. The mistake is made a bit more understandable by the fact that the manifesto mentions the True Finn party and Suomen Sisu in his list of the "indigenous european resistance organisations" that Anders Behring Breivik supports, naming True Finn MP Jussi Halla-aho in particular as an inspiration. Jussi Halla-aho has since denied knowing of mr Breivik or his manifesto.

Helsingin Sanomat on everyday racism in Finland

A well written post about everyday racism in Finland in today's Helsingin Sanomat. 

Dog faeces in the pram of an African-Finnish family. A working woman who's lived in Finland for 18 years told to go back to Africa. Helsingin Sanomat asked their readers to write in about their experiences with everyday racism in Finland.

"I saw a drunken woman harassing a Muslim woman and her child on the bus stop. Nobody there interfered so I got off the bus. The drunken woman was shouting 'Get the hell out of here, welfare leeches! You should be fucking killed' I threatened to call the police, and when she saw I meant business, she left."

A dark-skinned Finnish woman told us she'd been a victim of harassment due to the color of her skin. "I was sitting in the bus, reading a book when two men sat next to me and across from me. The one next to me leaned in close, practically onto my breasts and asked what I was reading. When I tried to leave, he grabbed me to keep me sitting there. The other one said 'You cunt. Where is your bomb vest? Did you leave it in Afghanistan?' What shocked me the most was that nobody raised a finger to help me."

Researcher and activist Sirkku Varjonen wishes people were more willing to act when they see racism. "Ignoring racist harassment creates an illusion of silent acceptance, which can be just as devastating to the victim as the attack itself," says Varjonen.

True Finn MP Tom Packalén wrote in to remind us that racist violence is rare in Finland. "I think Finland is not a racist country by any means. For example in Helsinki one finds very little racist violence in relation to population, when compared to any other country." Packalén says he doesn't want to disregard people's experiences of harassment, but says that commonly these attacks are such that almost anyone could fall victim. "These cases are due to a different appearance. There is just as much harassment of this kind among the native population. Commonly the attacks are also drug related."

Children also face racism in their daily lives. A reader writes in. "When my Somalian husband comes to pick up our child from kindergarten, she gets laughed at by other children. One time my daughter told me, she and another ethnic girl were not invited to a themed birthday party, because 'black girls can't be princesses'."

Mohamed Xadar Ismail, a project worker for youth organisation Kanava says parents need to think about if they are passing on prejudice to their children. "Racism and prejudice are easy to spot. If a child is raised to be able to interact with people from different cultures from an early age, they will grow up to be a functional adult that gets along well with people. Finland needs more of these skills in the future."

Sauli Niinistö becomes next president of Finland

Sauli Niinistö announced today his intention to run for President of Finland next year. Considering over 50% of Finns think he should become the next president already, he will likely become one next year.

His popularity is such that the most pertinent question reporters asked was "will you be running for a second term, also?" The populist racist True Finn party has also considered supporting Niinistö for president in 2012.

Finland finally forms coalition government

Finland officially has a government again, praised be our Lord in Heaven. Here's the breakdown. National Coalition gets 6, Social Democrats 6, Left, Green and Swedish People's Party get two each. Christian Democrats get the Ministry of Interior. There are 9 women and 10 men.

Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen (NC)

Minister of Finance Jutta Urpilainen (SDP)

Foreign Ministry is divided as follows:

Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja  (SDP)
Europe and foreign trade Minister Alexander Stubb (NC)
Development Minister Heidi Hautala (Green)

Minister of Public Administration and Local Government Henna Virkkunen (NC)
Minister of Defence Stefan Wallin (SWE)
Minister of the Interior Päivi Räsänen (CD)
Minister of Justice Anna-Maja Henriksson (SWE)
Agriculture and Forestry Minister Jari Koskinen (NC)
Economic affairs Minister Jyri Häkämies (NC)
Minister of Transport Merja Kyllönen (Left)
Minister for Health and Social affairs Paula Risikko (NC)
Minister for Health and Social services Maria Guzenina-Richardson(SDP)
Minister of Education Jukka Gustavsson (SDP)
Minister of Culture Paavo Arhinmäki (Left)
Minister of Labour Lauri Ihalainen (SDP)
Minister for Housing and Communications Krista Kiuru (SDP)
Minister of the Environment Ville Niinistö (Green)

In case you are wondering about the two health ministers thing, there are actually three ministers working the same ministry. The official government website has the following explanation: Risikko, Guzenina-Richardson and Arhinmäki all work in the same ministry called the Ministry of Social affairs and Health. Guzenina-Richardson is in charge of the health services excluding actual medicinal affairs and pre-emptive care. Culture and sports minister Arhinmäki is in charge of matters of equal access to medical care. Social and Health minister Risikko is where the buck stops for all other matters pertaining to health.

From the same page, Foreign Ministry division of labour is as follows. With regards to the Chancellery of Government, Europe and foreign trade Minister Stubb handles the EU-secretariat matters, excluding Council of Europe summits, chancellery matters concerning the modification of EU-founding articles and governmental matters of appointment pertaining to the EU. He is also in charge of trade and Nordic co-operation related things. Development Minister Hautala is in charge of something called Ownership Steering, which basically boils down to governmental investments into developing countries. Other Foreign ministry matters are the responsibility of Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja.

All I can say is FINALLY!!

In other news, just so this post has something to do with the True Finns, three Left Alliance MPs, Yrttiaho, Mustajärvi and Kontula were rumored to consider joining the True Finns. When asked about it, they said "Trash", "Bullsh*t" and "No way", respectively.

Jussi Niinistö: lets form paramilitary groups to attack gypsies

Jussi Niinistö, the True Finn chairman of the parliamentary committee on defence (and a nationalist nutter), said today that Finland should consider arming paramilitary groups in Finland. According to Niinistö's proposal would be formed following the example of extreme right-wing Jobbik party of Hungary, where said groups are known to parade in formation wearing black shirts and violent attacks on gypsy settlements. Like Niinistö proposes, these vigilante attacks are funded and approved by the Hungarian police force who have been spotted laughing on the sidelines as skinhead thugs terrorise Roma people in their own houses, breaking windows and shouting racist slogans. Apparently the defence committee chairman in Finland thinks things like this are desirable and needed.

"This is what Finland needs!" -Jussi Niinistö, 2011

Surprisingly enough, groups such as these are not new to Finland. It was last tried in the Finnish civil war and it resulted in over 20,000 executions of suspected leftist sympathisers in summary executions and concentration camps, and over 30,000 deaths overall in a country with a population of about 3 million.  Following World War II such groups were disbanded in accordance with the Paris peace treaty. They were also banned in Hungary, but re-established after the downfall of the communist regime and the rise of populist right wing parties.

The results

I heartily suggest everyone read the blog Gyöngyöspata Solidarity, just to get an idea of what is about to happen in Finland. Not a day goes by without Iltalehti reporting another 'gypsy crime', or someone in Helsingin Sanomat calling for the deportation of all Roma people from Finland. If you're wondering why the True Finns should not be allowed anywhere near power, Jussi Niinistö his lunatic opinions are enough reason. And the kicker? Jussi Niinistö is widely considered to be one of the moderate True Finn MPs.

Freddy "Holocaust never happened" Wonterghem is at it again!

I blogged before about a certain Belgian immigrant True Finn candidate's views on the Holocaust. Well, turns out Freddy van Wonterghem has expressed his views once more, this time on Muslim women. No, it's actually not about them being subjugated or the violence they supposedly face in Islamic societies. It's rather more upfront than that. Here's what Freddy said on his blog:

Let Saudis stone whomever they want in their own country. When a Muslim woman dies there is the positive effect of having less women giving birth to Muslims. If we kill enough Muslim women, Islam will be extinct. These are the facts.

So yeah, I bet Soini will issue another statement where he "personally disagrees" with this call for an outright genocide against Muslims, yet this person will be allowed to continue representing Soini's party with impunity. Do you know why? It's because the majority of True Finn supporters actually agree with these views.

True Finn parliamentary aide turns out to be a violent criminal

Mikael Lith, a parliamentary aide for the True Finn MP Vesa-Matti Saarakkala is evidently a violent criminal with a penchant for abusing women he's in a relationship with. In 2009 Lith got sentenced to €300 fine as well as paying €1300 in damages to his then-girlfriend. According to contemporary sources, Lith beat his girlfriend with his fists, dragged her by the hair and kicked her while she was laying on the ground. He then tried to pressure her into not talking to the police, which got him sentenced for intimidation as well as assault. What a class act.

fun fact: this is the only picture that exists of Mikael Lith

In 2005 Lith was arrested brandishing a replica firearm outside the Russian embassy. His excuse is he was drunk, and a friend was egging him on. Makes one proud to be Finnish. Here even the most violent, unpredictable and all around odious people are given a second chance, in the True Finn party.

Lith identifies himself as a critic of immigration, and a supporter of traditional Christian family values. Spare the rod, spoil the girlfriend, I suppose.

12 days into negotiations, coalition cabinet is still not formed

Today was a bad day for future PM (Note: the actual Finnish word for his position would be something like "government negotiating person") Jyrki Katainen as his negotiations to form a new coalition cabinet for Finland are set to enter their 13th day, with both the Social Democrats and the Left Alliance refusing to support the proposed economic programme today. Greens too, but with their past history of taking part in governments they disapprove of, they probably won't matter too much.

If Katainen fails to form a coalition cabinet, it will be not looked upon favorably by his own party, which for the first time holds the largest share of parliamentary seats. It would also mean that Social Democrats' Jutta Urpilainen gets to try forming one next, therefore giving the prime ministerial post to the Social Democratic party. In the unlikely scenario that ALL attempts to form a coalition cabinet fail, a new election will be held and judging from recent poll figures, this would mean the True Finns would become the largest party. Political theorist Jukka Tarkka is notable as the only person in Finland who actually thinks this is a real possibility.

It is now within possibility that Jyrki Katainen might not become PM after all, which would be a shame. With the huge Nokia corporation entering the most significant crisis of its lifetime, and the all around bad economic health of Europe, Finland can not really afford to stay forever without an executive branch.