| True Finns Perussuomalaiset (Finnish) Sannfinländarna (Swedish) |
|
|---|---|
| Leader | Timo Soini |
| Founded | 11 May 1995 |
| Preceded by | Finnish Rural Party (de facto) |
| Headquarters | Mannerheimintie 40 B 56 FI-00100 Helsinki |
| Ideology | Finnish nationalism[1] National populism[2][3] Social conservatism[4] Euroscepticism[1] |
| Political position | Fiscal: Centre-Left[5][6] Social: Right-wing |
| European Parliament Group | Europe of Freedom and Democracy |
| Official colours | None (Blue, White and Gold used on logo) |
| Parliament |
39 / 200
|
| European Parliament |
1 / 13
|
| Municipalities[7] |
443 / 10,412
|
| Website | |
| www.perussuomalaiset.fi | |
| Politics of Finland Political parties Elections |
|
True Finns or The Finns[8][note 1] (Finnish: Perussuomalaiset, PS, Swedish: Sannfinländarna, Sannf.) is a populist and nationalist political party in Finland, founded in 1995 following the dissolution of the Finnish Rural Party. The head of the movement is Timo Soini. In the 2011 Finnish parliamentary election, The party won 19.1% of votes,[10] becoming the third largest party in the Finnish Parliament.[11] They are currently the largest opposition party in the parliament.[12]
The party combines left-wing[5] economic policies with strongly conservative social values. In the parliament seating order, it has been placed in the centre-left.[13] However, central aspects of their manifesto[14] have gained support from right-wing voters as well.[15][note 2] The party has been compared by international media to the Tea Party movement in the United States and other similar nationalist and right-wing populist movements in Europe that are critical of globalism, whilst the party also supports the welfare state.[16][17]
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The predecessor of the True Finns was the Finnish Rural Party (Suomen maaseudun puolue, SMP), founded by Centre Party dissident Veikko Vennamo in 1959. Vennamo ran into serious disagreement particularly with Arvo Korsimo, then party secretary of the Agrarian League, and was excluded from the parliamentary group. As a result, Vennamo immediately started building his own organization and founded a new party, the Finnish Rural Party. Vennamo was a populist and became a critic of President Kekkonen and of the political corruption within the "old parties", particularly the Centre Party. The Rural Party achieved its two major victories in the elections of 1970 and 1983, winning 18 and 17 seats respectively. In the 1970s the party was highly personalized in Veikko Vennamo and his style of leadership alienated some in the party, which led to a split in the parliamentary group in 1972. After the Rural Party's new rise in 1983 under Vennamo's son Pekka Vennamo the party became a partner in two coalition cabinets. However, after this the party's support declined steadily. In 1995 the party won only one seat in the parliament and soon after filed for bankruptcy.
Following the collapse of the Finnish Rural Party, the decision to found True Finns was made in the summer of 1995 by Timo Soini, Raimo Vistbacka, Urpo Leppänen and Kari Bärlund. Soini had been the Rural Party's last party secretary and Vistbacka its last chairman and MP. The five thousand signatures needed for the registration of the party were collected by October 1995 and the party was added to the official party register on 13 October 1995.[18] The first party congress was held in November. Raimo Vistbacka was elected chairman of the party and Timo Soini the party secretary.[19]
After its founding in 1995, it took some time before the True Finns started to win credible ground in the Finnish elections. At the time of its founding the party had one MP, Raimo Vistbacka (who had been the last MP of the Rural Party), who was reelected in the 1999 election. In the 2003 parliamentary election the party won three seats: besides Vistbacka also Soini and Tony Halme were elected. In the 2007 parliamentary election the party gained two further seats for a total of five. In the 2008 municipal election the party was most successful in those districts where the Social Democrats and the Left Alliance lost most.[20] In the 2011 parliamentary election (see below) the Centre Party suffered the largest blow from the True Finns' success.
According to a 2008–2009 study the party's supporters view themselves as centrist: on a scale where 1 is extreme left and 10 is extreme right the average True Finns supporter placed him/herself at 5.4. According to the same study the party's supporters are united by patriotism and social conservatism.[21]
According to a 2011 study True Finns are the most popular party among voters with an annual income of 35,000–50,000 euros, while over a quarter of the party's voters earn over 50,000 per year.[22][23] The same study also indicates that the party's voters include a higher percentage of blue collar workers than those of the Social Democratic Party.[23]
True Finns obtained 39 seats in the 2011 election, making them the third largest party, narrowly behind the National Coalition (44) and the Social Democrats (42). Soini received 43,212 personal votes, the highest number of all candidates,[25] leaving behind the Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb and the Minister of Finance Jyrki Katainen in their Uusimaa electoral district.[26] The popularity of the party rose from 4.1% to 19.1% in just four years. Helsingin Sanomat said in an editorial that True Finns and Soini had "rewritten the electoral history books".[27] According to the BBC, behind the success of True Finns was Soini's "brain, wit and charisma".[28] According to political analyst Jan Sundberg, Soini has the ability to appeal to common people and make complicated things look easy.[29] The election result was also referred to as "shocking" and "exceptional".[10]
After the election the National Coalition Party (NCP) began negotiations aiming to form a cabinet between the NCP, the Social Democrats (SDP) and True Finns. However, when it became clear that the NCP and the SDP would continue to support EU bailouts, which the True Finns vehemently opposed during the electoral campaign, the True Finns voluntarily broke from the negotiations in order to become the leading opposition party. Soini said that the party would not compromise its core principles just to get in the government.[30] According to an opinion poll most of the party's supporters accepted this decision.[31]
In the opinion polls the party's popularity has risen after the election as well: in June one opinion poll recorded the True Finns a popularity of 23 per cent.[32] The party's membership has risen too: as of summer 2011 the party has some 5,500 members (significantly up from 1,000 in 2005).[33][34] After the parliamentary election the number of members of the party's Youth Organisation has risen from 800 to over 1,300.[35]
The head of the movement is Timo Soini, who has been the party's leader since 1997. Soini was the True Finns' candidate in the 2006 Presidential election, and was elected to the European Parliament in 2009 with the highest personal vote share in the country. He served as an MEP for two years, returning to the Finnish parliament in the 2011 election. Soini is an enthusiastic football fan, a publicly devoted Catholic in almost-entirely-Lutheran Finland, and a supporter of the state of Israel.[36] He also is a supporter of the English football team Millwall FC.[37] Soini is staunchly pro-life.[38] During the latest electoral campaign the popularity of Soini raised some global concerns about the future and stability of the European Union and increased international media interest in the election.[39]
Policies of the party include the following, as outlined in the electoral program for the 2011 election:[40][41]
True Finns have proposed more progressivity to taxes in order to avoid the establishment of flat taxation. The party has called for the raising of the capital gains tax and the re-institution of the wealth tax. According to the party, the willingness to pay taxes is best guaranteed by a society unified by right social policies — the electoral program warns against individualist policies, which weaken the solidarity between citizens. "The willingness to pay taxes is guaranteed by having a unified people", the program reads (p. 46).[41]
Some observers have compared True Finns' fiscal policies to the old national Social Democratic taxation policy, which has given the left-wing brand to the True Finns. During the electoral campaign in 2011 Soini stated that he preferred the Social Democrats over the center-right National Coalition Party as a possible coalition partner in a future cabinet. Soini has stated that the True Finns are a "workers' party without socialism".[42] A researcher for the opinion polling company Taloustutkimus agreed, describing the True Finns as a "non-socialist workers' party".[43]
True Finns' rural policy program suggests state subsidies to relieve the effect of structural changes on the rural areas.[41] This policy is shared by the Centre Party in Finland and originates from the agrarian and rural policies of both parties.
True Finns favour state investments in infrastructure and industry as well. A tendency towards favouring old industrial policies have led some political analysts to label True Finns as a center-left party.
The cultural program of True Finns, preferring "traditional art" over what the party calls postmodernism in state subsidies, started a debate.[44][45] There was some debate on the issue inside the party as well.[46]
The only written declaration to the European Parliament made by a True Finn MEP concerns immigration matters.[6]. The 2011 manifesto further emphasises:
The party underlines the role of national sovereignty in immigration issues:
[True] Finnish immigration policy should be based on the fact that the Finns should always be able to decide for themselves the conditions under which a foreigner can come to our country and reside in our country.
Liberals, Social Democrats and professor Jan Sundberg of the University of Helsinki have accused the party of xenophobia.[16][29] These accusations have been denied by both True Finns and numerous other Finnish politicians: for example the Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb (NCP) wrote on his blog after the 2011 election that the international media had misrepresented True Finns chairman Timo Soini: "[Soini] is a fair and responsible guy",[48] he wrote, adding that he had known Soini for eight years and that he should not be demonized.[49]
Timo Soini signed a pan-European charter against racism in 1998.[50] However, in 2009, before the European Parliament election, Soini refused to sign an anti-racism appeal, saying that the appeal was an attempt to influence the party's choice of candidates (the appeal was drawn up by another political party). All other Finnish parties signed this appeal against racism.[51] In May 2011, following controversies surrounding the remarks of True Finns MP Teuvo Hakkarainen, the True Finns' parliamentary group issued a statement condemning all racism and discrimination, including affirmative action.[52] The party invited other parties to sign the statement as well, but no other party did so.
Timo Soini is an outspoken critic of both the EU and NATO, but has stated that if a choice had to be made, NATO is a lesser evil than the EU. True Finns favour non-alliance or neutrality, as international activities abroad for the Defence Forces would undermine the defence budget's funds for sustaining a large conscript army of war-time personnel (which is currently at 350,000) to guarantee the defence of all of Finland.[41] When the Finnish Parliament voted to ratify the Ottawa Treaty, banning anti-personnel mines, in November 2011, the True Finns were the only party unified in opposing the treaty.[53]
The party strongly believes in national sovereignty:
[T]he eternal and unlimited right to always decide freely and independently of all of one's affairs lies only and solely with the people, which forms a nation separate of others.—True Finns' Program for the 2011 election (p. 7)[41]
| Election year | # of total votes | % of overall vote | # of seats won |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | 26,440 | 0.99% | 1 |
| 2003 | 43,816 | 1.57% | 3 |
| 2007 | 112,256 | 4.05% | 5 |
| 2011 | 560,075 | 19.05% | 39 |
| Election year | Candidate | # of total votes | % of overall vote |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Ilkka Hakalehto | 31,405 | 1.03% |
| 2006 | Timo Soini | 103,368 | 3.43% |
| Election year | # of total votes | % of overall vote | # of seats won | # MEP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | 15,004 | 0.67% | 0 | |
| 1999 | 9,854 | 0.79% | 0 | |
| 2004 | 8,900 | 0.54% | 0 | |
| 2009 | 162,930 | 9.79% | 1 | Timo Soini 2009–2011 Sampo Terho 2011– |
| Election year | # of total votes | % of overall vote | # of seats won |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | 21,999 | 0.93% | 138 |
| 2000 | 14,712 | 0.66% | 109 |
| 2004 | 21,417 | 0.90% | 106 |
| 2008 | 137,497 | 5.39% | 443 |
The party chairmanship is divided between four persons, elected at party congress biannually. Timo Soini has been chairman since 1997. The first deputy chairwoman is Hanna Mäntylä, the second deputy chairman is Juho Eerola and the third deputy chairman is Reijo Ojennus.[54]
Raimo Vistbacka chaired the True Finns from 1995 to 1997. After him the party secretary Timo Soini became the chairman in 1997. Rolf Sormo was the next party secretary, from 1997 to 1999. The third party secretary, Hannu Purho, served the longest time so far, from 1999 to 2007. After him, Timo Soini's parliamentary assistant, Ossi Sandvik, was elected party secretary in 2007.
The board of True Finns has eight members: Seppo Huhta, Vuokko Lahti, Pekka Leskinen, Pirita Nenonen, Pirkko Ruohonen-Lerner, Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo, Seppo Toriseva and Raimo Vistbacka. The party's chairmen and the party secretary take part in the meetings as well.[55]
Pirkko Ruohonen-Lerner is the current chairwoman of the parliamentary group. The chairmanships of the committees (valiokunnat, singular valiokunta) are shared between the parties in such a way that True Finns chair the Foreign Affairs Committee, Administration Committee, and Defence Committee.[56]
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