Oh no! Society is decaying!

Quoth Justice Minister Tuija Brax (Green League):

[Brax] was quoted as saying by Aamulehti on Saturday that the country's democracy faced a serious crisis that could lead to a marked increase in crime and violent behaviour.

The minister told the Tampere-based daily she had been concerned about declining election turnout figures for the past two decades. [...]

The minister feels the cohesion of Finnish society is decaying, spawning organised crime and violence.

Meanwhile the National Research Institute for Legal Policy reports:

Young men's delinquent behaviour has remained more or less unchanged over the past forty years.

[...] The institute compared criminal behaviour among young males in 1962 and 2006. Results found that today's youth has not become any more mixed up in delinquent activity than generations before, although many goods are far more accessible for theft today than 40 years ago.

So there's that.

I was particularly impressed by the connection Brax made between election turnout and crime. Considering that presidential elections have considerably higher turnout than parliamentary elections, it seems probable that bicycle thefts show a decline after presidential elections, because young would-be criminals feel like they have a say and stuff.

Happily, then, the solution to the Justice Minister's fears is obvious: To prevent societal breakdown, we must move to a fully presidential system of governance and arrange elections every two years or so. Then you could leave your bike outside without a lock, I'm certain of it.

PS: I've so far come up with two things I like about Jyrki Katainen. Will post when I can think of a third.

51/51 change

Yes, we have a tie. MP Merikukka Forsius, previously of the Green League, switched over to the National Coalition Party. Now the Centre Party and the Coalition will have an equal number of MPs, 51. One more flip to the Coalition and things might get interesting.

Forsius, who is from Vihti, said that local Greens don't want to cooperate with her, and that the Coalition's current values fit her. I'm not sure the leap is good for her political future, though.

You don't negotiate with terrorists

The Green League seems to be putting forth an effort to get out its point of view on the patient safety bill. Jyrki Kasvi MP and Oras Tynkkynen MP both wrote blog posts defending the bill, as did Green parliamentary group leader Anni Sinnemäki (all in Finnish). The general arguments are the same in all three posts. All remember to express the view that nurses should be paid more. Both Sinnemäki and Kasvi cite the International Labor Organization in support of the position that industrial action shouldn't threaten lives.

Everyone isn't quite as coordinated. Osmo Soininvaara, former Green League chair and in my opinion a pretty clever fellow, is out of the daily grind of politics and can afford to take a more combative stance. He has a go (fi) at both sides in Iltalehti:

"How could this strife become a crisis, although everyone agreed that a pay problem that had been known for a long time would be fixed? All sides have only made a mess of it and acted in a totally incomprehensible way."

"Firstly the [National] Coalition [Party]'s election advertising was wholly irresponsible. That the parliament doesn't promise wages to anyone has always been attended to, but they made it into an election campaign."

"When government then gave money to the municipalities, the municipal employers went ahead and sprinkled it evenly on the entire municipal field. It was totally mindless. Even those who hadn't asked for money got it."

"[The Union of Health and Social Care Professionals' (Tehy)] blackmail campaign makes it terribly difficult to agree to the nurses' demands."

"It's a general principle that you mustn't pay for hostages, otherwise they will become common. This is blackmail with human lives. If you give in to it, then every following strike is arranged in the same way."

So he supports the bill.

"If electricians for example thought of putting hospital emergency rooms on strike, it would then be forbidden."

"Tehy would have had several methods which wouldn't have amounted to blackmail."

"Now finding an an agreement is easier, because the principle according to which everyone who threatens to kill gets money is no longer in force because of [the bill]. It's morally easier to agree to Tehy's demands, because it won't set a precedent."

Especially the language concerning Tehy is the sort of thing you won't be hearing from many active politicians.

Meanwhile, here are the first poll figures on the issue:

56 of the respondents backed the draft law while 35 per cent did not. About a tenth were undecided.

In other polls commissioned by YLE, about 60 percent of respondents have consistently said that they "accept in this situation Tehy's industrial action". (The word "hyväksyä", used in the polls, can be translated as "accept" or "approve". Who knows how respondents interpret it.)

Cronberg opposes joining NRF

Green League chair, Labor Minister Tarja Cronberg said (fi) at a party council meeting that it would be beneficial for Finland to stay out of the NATO Response Forces. She thinks joining the forces would probably increase the pressure to take part in operations that Finland hasn't chosen itself. It's a reasonable point and, I suspect, one that we'll be hearing more often once the NRF decision becomes timely. President Tarja Halonen has also pointed out (fi) that Finland wouldn't be involved in making the decision to start an operation. This makes the NRF different from e.g. the EU Rapid Reaction Forces.

Cronberg also pretty much accused of Foreign Minister Ilkka Kanerva and Defense Minister Jyri Häkämies of being on their hands and knees in front of Washington. Her comparison to the old days of Finlandization is a bit off-base. The United States just plain doesn't care about Finland enough to try to influence the country's foreign policy debate to the extent the Soviet Union used to do. Further, the domestic point scoring has gone both ways: against pro-NATO folks for having a bit too warm relations with the US and against anti-NATO folks for not being in Washington's good graces.

It will be interesting to see how the Greens react, should the government come down on the side of joining the NRF.

Super ministry to the rescue

The new Ministry of Employment and Industries - or Labor and Business, or whatever the final translation will be - will come into being (fi) next year. Trade and Industries Minister Mauri Pekkarinen (Centre Party) and Labor Minister Tarja Cronberg (Green League) held a little press conference to introduce the new ministry's organization (fi). In summary, quite a few people will be working there and a lot of money will go through the place.

As to the motivation for setting up the new ministry, Cronberg explained that currently unemployed people and work that needs to be done don't meet, but Mauri and she will change all that now that everything related to the process is under one roof. All that remains to be seen is whether they'll fix the problem by eliminating work or the unemployed.

From a party political standpoint, this is a bit of coup for the Centre. Pekkarinen, to be called the Minister for Industries or something like that, will be in charge of distributing a great deal of dough that's related to regional development. This is particularly desirable for the Centre as its support is quite regionalized. The project probably isn't entirely about patronage, but I'd be very surprised if that angle hasn't been considered at Centre party headquarters.

In other news, Pekkarinen revealed that he would have liked to have called it the Economy Ministry. He was puzzled why that name wasn't picked. (Because it's pompous, Mauri.)

Soininvaara: Time is better than money

As a part of the aforementioned Finland report, Financial Times published several articles by Finns. Professor Pekka Himanen, who I have a hard time taking seriously, wrote a fluffy piece on caring and creativity and things of that nature. Foreign Affairs Committee chair Pertti Salolainen (National Coalition Party) wrote about NATO, mostly. (His summary of how Finnish governments are formed contained a curious mistake. Contrary to what he wrote, the Prime Minister doesn't always need to come from the biggest party. The biggest party doesn't always need to be represented in the government at all.)

The best of the bunch by a wide margin was former Green League chair Osmo Soininvaara's column on the value of not working hard. Soininvaara is commonly held to be a clever fellow and I thought he made several clever points in this article.

A whole nation can become richer only by consuming things that can be produced more. Not everybody can get a house at the riverside in the middle of the city. If my income doubles, I can afford to eat better in a good restaurant and hire the chef for ten minutes, but not if the salary of the chef also doubles. The rich eat in restaurants more than the poor, but Finns have not increased eating in restaurants in the past 20 years despite a 50 per cent rise in income. In the past three years, the average real income of Finns has risen by 6.5 per cent. Most people have not noticed the difference. Had we accepted the consumption level of 2004, we could now have eight weeks vacation instead of five. Why not?

Yeah, why not?

Let's vote on it

Finland hasn't experienced many referendums, but that may be about to change:

Tuija Brax (green), Finland's justice minister, was quoted as saying by Helsingin Sanomat on Friday that referendums and popular initiatives could be used to persuade people to get more involved in society.

The minister told the paper she did not want to comment on what sorts of issues referendums could be held in the future.

The article mentions that a consultative referendum on NATO membership is thought to have support in the Parliament. I rather doubt we'll ever have one, though. A referendum is unlikely unless the government is in favor of membership and if the government is in favor of membership, it has no incentive to hold a vote that very well might go the other way. Similarly, a referendum on the EU not-a-constitution is highly unlikely, because there's a danger the people will vote the wrong way. What I'm getting at is that unless there's a good chance that a vote will be held even when the government-backed option might lose, there's no point in holding a vote.

Blogging is hard, politicians find

Helsingin Sanomat surveyed (fi) Finnish top politicians' blogs for signs of life and found precious few posts after the election. It's shocking, I know.

Prime Minister and Centre Party leader Matti Vanhanen (all linked blogs are in Finnish) and main opposition leader Eero Heinäluoma of the Social Democratic Party have made a few entries; both vaguely hinted at writing more in the future. Finance Minister and National Coalition Party leader Jyrki Katainen has posted only one entry in his blog since the election.

The most popular politician's blog belongs to Green League MP Jyrki Kasvi. Other notable politicians who update their blogs frequently include Christian Democratic party leader Päivi Räsänen and Social Democratic former Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja. Coalition MEP Alexander Stubb isn't mentioned in the article, but I'd add him to that group.

HS also compiled a list (fi) of the most read blogs written by politicians based on the rankings at Blogilista. Here's the top five:

1. Kasvi
2. Tuomioja
3. Oras Tynkkynen (Green MP)
4. Vanhanen
5. Heidi Hautala (Green MP)

One thing politicians could easily do to improve their blogs is to have their tech people set up RSS feeds. Kasvi, Stubb, Tynkkynen, and Hautala have them, but the rest don't. Feeds would be especially useful for blogs that are updated rarely.

Who wants to go to Darfur?

Green League leader and Labour Minister Tarja Cronberg wonders (fi) why Finland says it can't send peacekeepers to Darfur because of insufficient resources, but the same argument is not applied when the talk turns to sending more peacekeepers to Afghanistan. Cronberg writes, "The fact that only Afghanistan seems to be a serious alternative strengthens the impression that Finland's decision too have other basis than ending human suffering. The United States pressures Finland to increase its effort in Afghanistan, not in Darfur."

Other government sources are sending mixed signals. When the UN Security Council made the decision on the Darfur operation, Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre Party) said (fi) that Finnish participation was unlikely. An official from the Ministry of Defense said that taking part would require that the Finnish contingent in some other operation would be reduced. Defense Minister Kari Häkämies (National Coalition Party) has speculated before that the EU's Nordic battle group may be heading Sudan way.

No doubt there's a certain value in completing previous commitments before taking on new ones, but Cronberg has a point when she argues that on humanitarian grounds peacekeepers could do more good in Sudan than Afghanistan. Whether Finnish peacekeepers in specific are needed for the Darfur operation to succeed isn't entirely clear to me, though.

Left Alliance party secretary Sirpa Puhakka has also demanded that Finland take part in the Darfur operation. It's interesting that the Greens and Leftists seem eager to send peacekeepers to Darfur. Traditionally neither party has been overly enthusiastic about foreign interventions.

Rise of the election machines

No, this post isn't about the dangers of electronic voting. TSN Gallup has conducted a poll on the use of election machines - i.e. online surveys that ask you various political questions and then recommend candidates and/or parties. Helsingin Sanomat reports on it here (fi) and Verkkouutiset offers more data.

About a third of people eligible to vote used election machines. That's up from about a quarter in 2003. 71 percent of election machine users voted. I wonder, does that mean that a sizable chunk of the rest would have voted if online voting had been possible? Overall the turnout was 68 percent. If my math is correct, roughly 35% of voters used election machines.

For their users election machines were the most important way of acquiring information about the election, narrowly beating TV news programs and newspaper articles. Lest you despair, users followed the election more closely than non-users using other information sources, too. For the population as a whole, election machines tied for third with election-related TV programs. They were behind news programs and newspaper articles, but ahead of candidate web sites, real life acquaintances, election ads in newspapers, and radio.

Interestingly, Internet forums - the category under which blogs are counted, at a guess - were the most important source of information for a big fat zero percent of voters in general. Among election machine users, three percent considered Interent forums as their most important information source. I think it's safe to say that at the moment Finnish political blogs are not a force with which anyone needs to reckon.

15 percent of users wound up voting for the candidate recommended by an election machine because they didn't have a favorite of their own. Three percent switched from a previous favorite candidate to a recommended candidate. An election machine helped one in five users to exclude a candidate. 53 percent of users voted for a candidate that no election machine had recommended. By my count roughly six percent of voters took their cues from an election machine.

I find it a bit odd that 47 percent of users voted for a candidate that was recommended to them by an election machine, but relatively few admit to following the recommendations. In my experience the candidate for whom I'm thinking about voting is almost never recommended to me as the top choice. Perhaps I know less about candidates' issue positions than the average user, but I suspect that respondents aren't being entirely honest about how important election machines were in their voting decisions.

I'm one of the people who used election machines to exclude candidates and I found that they work pretty well for that purpose. I also checked out a few candidates who I would have otherwise ignored. If memory serves, the candidate I voted for ranked high in at least one list of recommendations, but not at number one.

Users were more likely than other voters to opt for the National Coalition Party (31% versus 22%) and the Green League (17% versus 8%). The Centre Party (17% versus 23%) and the Social Democratic Party (12% versus 21%) were less popular among users than non-users. Presumably this is due to Coalitionists and Greens being more plentiful online than among the general populace.

The most popular election machines belonged to YLE (fi), MTV3 (fi), and Helsingin Sanomat (fi), in that order.

The people demand to be conscripted

According to a poll (fi) published in Ilta-Sanomat on Tuesday, 78 percent of Finns support general conscription. In practice the numbers haven't changed in two years, when the figure was 77 percent. (Insert your own "fall in line" pun here.) Thinking about the politics of it, the situation is even worse for the opponents of conscription than those numbers indicate, because they divide into two groups that are unlikely to cooperate on security policy: people who think an all-volunteer army would come prepackaged with a NATO membership and people who don't like NATO at all.

Before the parliamentary election Helsingin Sanomat asked the candidates (fi) how Finland's defense should be organized. Of the 188 current MPs who answered the questionnaire, a whopping dozen said they'd be willing to do away with general conscription. Ten of those opposed NATO membership, seven of whom are from the Green League. As a party the Greens advocate (fi) for selective conscription and the abolition of the civilian service system, which makes it strange that more of their candidates didn't pick that option in the HS survey.

Although the pro-NATO group is now considerably smaller, that position probably has more growth potential as it's easier to sell as a serious-minded and responsible alternative. Currently, however, its supporters in the Parliament consist of Sirpa Asko-Seljovaara (National Coalition Party) and Liisa Jaakonsaari (Social Democratic Party). The duo admirably show where the position's support would come from, were it to ever come: the Coalition and right-wing Social Democrats. I wouldn't wait for it to happen any time soon, though.

In other news, "Finland's Defence Forces is to further align its rank system with those used by the armies of other western countries, partly to cope with the demands of an increasing number of international operations". Oh, is "international operations" what they call it these days? Wink, nudge.

Carnage at health center as PM's bride goes on rampage

In what promises to be the most hilarious story of the week, it emerged today that Merikukka Forsius MP (Green League) threw a toilet roll at a heckler at a Lohja health center late last Saturday. She and her beau Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre Party) had brought in a friend for treatment at the A&E, which didn't sit well with a middle-aged male customer, who may or may not have been driven mad by the excessive waiting times inherent in socialized health care. Eventually Forsius reached for the toilet roll, which she threw to (at?) the man so he might clean up his language.

Vanhanen and Forsius say that the later the man proposed that they could "make a deal or else..." which prompted the pair to publicly describe the incident from their point of view. According to them, the man accused them of cutting in line, high income, and misuse of position. In an inspired detail, he repeatedly called one the pair a drug addict based on thinness - take a guess which one that was. He also threatened to go fetch his camera and to call the newspapers. Still, the exact trajectory and impact area of the toilet roll are shrouded in mystery as of this moment. According to the man it hit a patient in the head, but he was less than forthright about his role in the incident, so his account probably shouldn't be accepted as accurate without further corroboration.

We all await further developments with bated breath, I'm sure.

The soft Green underbelly

The government's plan to cut free full-time daycare for children from low-income families were probably the biggest political story of the week. The story had legs because as soon as the government had announced its plan, it started to backpedal. The original decision was made in a meeting between the leaders of the four government parties, including Labor Minister Tarja Cronberg of the Green League, but that didn't stop the Green parliamentary faction from almost immediately coming out against the proposal. The current word is that a number of provisions will be attached to the original proposal to make it acceptable to all government parties.

It wasn't difficult to guess that Greens would be the weak link in the government, with regard to supporting government policy, and this episode offered supporting evidence for the contention. The Greens a centre-left party in an otherwise centre-right government and traditionally display weak party discipline. The opposition obviously knows this; when the daycare issue was discussed in Parliament, various opposition MPs could be seen asking in plaintive tones how the Greens could in good conscience go along with such a heinous plan. As it worked, similar scenes are probably in store whenever the government does - or tries to do - something controversial.

I think the Greens will continue to act as a moderating influence on government policy, but that influence will be limited on issues that are truly important to either of the main government parties, the Centre Party or the National Coalition Party. (Details of daycare policy don't qualify.) Strictly speaking, the Greens aren't needed to form a functional government based on those two parties, which rather weakens their hand.

World's most important movie

While looking for comments on the Fradkov visit, I noticed that Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen had written a little review (fi) of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth on his blog. Vanhanen watched the movie when it was recently shown on Finnish TV and provides prime blurb material in his blog post: "I saw it now for the second time and still consider it the world's most important movie." Let this be a lesson on what sort of things to say for all of you who are interested in picking up that cute blond Green MP.

Budget planning

According to budget plans released this week, increases in pensions, student aid, and single parents' child allowance will be implemented during the next year and a half. The government also wants (fi) to cut state dept by 1'145 million euros. And about those tax cuts... They're still coming, but you may have to wait a while before they get here. Finance Minister Jyrki Katainen (National Coalition Party) cited fears about economic overheating as the reason to move them to the end of the government's term.

The opposition has focused on on the government plan to do away with free full-time daycare for low-income parents. The Green League appears to have gone wobbly on that point. Freshly reelected (fi) party leader, Labor Minister Tarja Cronberg claimed that no decision has been made. Parliamentary faction chair Anni Sinnemäki went further, saying (fi) that the Greens don't accept the planned changes. Katainen has defended the plan, noting that part-time daycare will remain free and describing the new fee as small. Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre Party) promised on Saturday that the issue will be examined further.

Low-carbon energy strategies

The British government is considering replacing at least some of their aging nuclear plants with new ones. Since Finland is the only EU country in which a nuclear plant is under construction at the moment, the Finnish experience is being used as an argument by both sides of the British nuclear debate. From a Finnish perspective, some of argumentation is a bit curious. For example, John Sauven, director of Greenpeace UK, wrote in the Guardian:

[T]he move appears to be undermining alternative low-carbon energy strategies. After falling in 2001 and 2002, Finland's carbon emissions are now rising. Measures, promised in a 2001 climate report, such as energy taxation, have not been implemented. According to Finland's former environment minister Satu Hassi MEP, once the decision was made to build the new reactor, the country lost interest in alternative energy sources.

I'm not sure where Sauven gets his data on carbon emissions. According to Statistics Finland, carbon dioxide emissions increased in 2000-2003, but dropped in 2003-2005 to end roughly at the 2000 level. The decision to build a new nuclear plant was made in January 2002 and the building permit was issued in February 2005.

Satu Hassi (Green League) resigned as minister over the decision to build that new reactor, so it isn't surprising that she is still fundamentally opposed to it. I have to say, for a country that has lost interest in alternative energy sources, our politicians spent a lot of time going on about the topic during the election campaign.

Election funding figures released

This Monday was the deadlines for MPs to file declarations detailing where they got their election funding. The declarations can now be accessed online (fi). In theory it's a beautiful thing, but the rules allow MPs to keep their sources of funding pretty well hidden if they wish. The main loophole is that the donors give the money to some association which forwards it to the MP, and only the name of the association then appears on the declaration. For another thing, if the donation is under 1'700 euros, the donor's name need not be made public.

Something the declarations do tell you is how much money each MP raised in all. In general, candidates spent about 20'000-50'000 euros. Comparing the parties, MPs from the big centre-right parties, the National Coalition Party and the Centre Party, put the most money into their campaigns by a considerable margin. Eero Lehti (Coalition) spent the most, 119'336 euros. Two other MPs spent more than 100'000 euros: Sauli Niinisto (Coalition) and Paula Sihto (Centre). Pirkko Lerner-Ruohonen (True Finns) got through with the smallest budget, 1'835 euros, largely thanks to being on the same list as party leader Timo Soini.

The government is talking about introducing more transparency to the system, although what that may entail isn't clear at this point. The Centre and the Green League are reportedly the most enthusiastic to shine more light on the funding - and good on them. The Coalition Party and the Swedish People's Party are less inclined to make changes.

The Coalition takes the lead

Taloustutkimus, the polling company used by the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE), has come up with a new poll (fi) on party support, the first one I've seen since the election. The National Coalition Party has taken the lead with 24.1 percent. The party's best parliamentary election result ever is 23.1 percent from 1987, so they're flying high indeed. The Centre Party follows in second place at 23 percent and the Social Democratic Party are third at 20.7 percent. Behind the big three, the Green League has passed the Left Alliance, 9.4 percent to 8.2 percent, and the True Finns are up to 4.5 percent.

The figures suggest that the new government is enjoying something of a honeymoon with the voters. This applies especially to the two new government parties, the Coalition and the Greens, which are also the two parties the opposition has criticized the most. Apparently the criticism hasn't had much of an effect, at least for now. The Centre in particular has received remarkably little flack from the opposition considering their leading role in the government. The appointment of Paavo Väyrynen as Foreign Trade Minister was widely attacked, of course, but that mostly came from the media, not opposition politicians.

YLE and Taloustutkimus have discussed (fi) how to improve on the results of previous polls, which have been criticized for underrating the Coalition's support. According to Taloustutkimus, the problem was the Coalition's unusually low support in the 2003 parliamentary election. My understanding is that pollsters don't generally trust that their sample of respondents is truly representative and therefore adjust the figures in various ways. The idea is to use the turnout from previous elections to build a turnout model that tells the pollster which respondents' answers to emphasize. Taloustutkimus's turnout model was bad because they didn't account for the increase of enthusiasm amount certain types of voters who favored the Coalition.

The problems with the previous results shouldn't be exaggerated. In absolute numbers Taloustutkimus's estimate of the Coalition's support have mostly been passable - within the margin of error in the recent election. The issue was that the difference was large enough to relegate the Social Democrats to third place and raise the Coalition to second - and into government. Had there been a similar error which didn't affect the the parties' order, it would have hardly caused any consternation.

Will someone please think of the Great Cormorants?

The Parliament has been debating (fi) the new government program. The discussion is largely ritualistic; the government naturally defends all aspects of its program and the opposition is stridently opposed to everything. There are things to be learned, though.

For example, I got the strong impression that the Social Democratic Party and other opposition parties doubt the government's ability to carry out the National Coalition Party's promise (fi) to financially support income equality in comprehensive incomes policy agreements. The Coalitionists, for their part, seem fairly confident; neither Finance Minister and party chairman Jyrki Katainen nor parliamentary faction chairman Pekka Ravi shirked away from stating that they're going through with the plan if the negotiating parties cooperate.

Another telling moment was when Left Alliance parliamentary faction chairwoman Annika Lapintie charged the government parties with condoning the slaughter of Great Cormorants. As a sop to the Swedish People's Party, whose coast-dwelling supporters come to contact with the birds more often than most Finns, the government program mentions (fi) limiting the number of Great Cormorants. Lapintie's critique is not pointed at the Swedish PP, however, but rather at the Green League. The Left Alliance seem to have identified the Greens as a potentially rewarding target and have embraced the sellout angle. Agreeing to the slaughter of the noble Great Cormorants fits the bill nicely.

Naming more names

The Centre Party chose its ministers (fi) today. Matti Vanhanen will of course be the Prime Minister. Paavo Väyrynen, who is an ass, was surprisingly nominated as the Minister for Foreign Trade and Development. Väyrynen defeated Antti Kaikkonen in a close vote. Another extreme Centrist Mauri Pekkarinen expectedly landed the new "super ministry" and will become the Minister of Trade and Industry. A third veteran, Sirkka-Liisa Anttila, will become the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry. Of the Centre's rising stars, Mari Kiviniemi was nominated for the Minister of Municipal and Administrative Affairs and Anu Vehviläinen ended up as the Minister of Transport. The Minister of Social Affairs and Health will be the conservative Liisa Hyssälä. Paula Lehtomäki, who was rumored to receive a weightier post, will become the Minister of the Environment. After the election Lehtomäki announced that she is pregnant. Kimmo Tiilikainen will fill in for her while she's on maternity leave.

The Green League announced their ministers last night. Tuija Brax, one of the party's experts in legal matters, was picked as the Minister of Justice. Heidi Hautala challenged party leader Tarja Cronberg for the labour portfolio, but Cronberg was voted the Greens' candidate for Minister of Labour. Since both the Greens and the Centre more women than men (although the Centre's posts will be tied during Lehtomäki's leave), the new Cabinet will have a female majority, which I think is much cooler than the usual 50%-50% split.

The National Coalition Party and Swedish People's Party minister lists can be found here.