Election reform hits a snag

The Justice Ministry's election reform committee, which was intended to finish its work in late March, has reportedly hit a bit of a rough patch (fi). Anonymous sources have accused the big parties of obstructionism, so this week the Centre Party's secretary Jarmo Korhonen, a member of the committee, laid down (fi) his party's proposal. He that the big parties were prepared to change the system so that the whole of Finland constitutes a single electoral area and there's a four percent national electoral threshold. The Swedish People's Party, which benefits from its regionally concentrated support and is currently barely above the four percent threshold, obviously opposes (fi) such a move.

Of the micro-parties, the Senior Party and the Liberals issued a joint statement (fi) in which they approved of the plan for a single electoral area, but said that the threshold should be larger than four percent. Instead they would like to see a two-percent threshold - which, for what it's worth, is still so high that both of them put together would have a difficult time clearing it.

Looking at the last ten parliamentary elections, on average 6.9 parties have received more than four percent of the vote and 7.7 parties have gotten more than two percent. No parties have fallen between four and two percent in the last three elections, but in the six elections before that, one or two regularly did. Fear of fragmentation is hardly an issue unless we assume that these results would change drastically. Of the current established parties, the Christian Democrats and the Green League spent several elections below four percent back in the day, but had MPs anyway due to regional support and beneficial electoral alliances.

I kind of like the idea of a single national electoral area, but I agree that four percent is too high of a threshold. There's no particular reason why the limit shouldn't be two percent.

The great Sipoo landgrab

Never mind the EU summit; Finland's biggest political story of the moment concerns municipal boundaries. Here's the set-up: The city of Helsinki wants to build some affordable housing, what with its high housing prices and all. The problem is that it wants to build that housing on land that currently belongs to the municipality of Sipoo. Sipoo doesn't want to give the land, about 30 square kilometres in area, to Helsinki. Helsinki wants to take it anyway. Now the government needs to make a decision on whether to move the border between Sipoo and Helsinki.

The border move is broadly popular in Helsinki, which happens to be one of the biggest electoral districts in the country, but also unpopular among certain key voting segments. Swedish-speaking Finns and thus the Swedish People's Party don't like it because Sipoo is mostly Swedish-speaking and Helsinki is not. (Update: 40 percent of the population are Swedish-speaking, compared to 6 percent in Helsinki.) Some rural Centre Party supporters don't like it because they fear it will set a precedent according to which the borders of their municipalities might also be changed, but the party's Helsinki branch supports the move. The National Coalition Party and the Green League, both of whose support is centered in urban and mostly Finnish-speaking areas, are fully behind it.

In general the opinion of Helsinki voters would weigh more, but the vote is predicted to be close because four ministers - Brax (Green), Kiviniemi (Centre), Sarkomaa (Coalition), and Vapaavuori (Coalition) - will have to disqualify themselves from the vote because they're involved in Helsinki municipal politics. In a slightly absurd development, other ministers including Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) were ready to disqualify themselves due to having previously expressed an opinion on the matter. In the end common sense won out and they'll be taking part in the vote, which will be held this Thursday.

Helsingin Sanomat, citing government sources, predicts (fi) that the move will be approved. The Swedish People's Party's two ministers, Trade and Industry Minister Mauri Pekkarinen (Centre), and possibly a few other Centre ministers will vote nay, but it won't be enough to block the move. Hufvudstadsbladet agrees (fi), noting that the best the opponents can hope for is a tie and in that case Vanhanen's vote will decide - and he's known to support the proposal.

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.

Parenting is gay

I do believe this is the worst post on Finland for Thought since Finnpundit went on a hopefully permanent hiatus. In reaction to an article stating that Culture Minister Stefan Wallin (Swedish People's Party), whose portfolio also includes equality affairs, will launch a project "aimed at encouraging parental leave", guest blogger Kristian writes:

[T]he issue centers around gender identity.

Which is blatant nonsense. The linked article says, "The aim of Wallin's project is to promote awareness of parental benefits that already exist. This would mean that fathers would also be allowed to use them more." The question is to what extent men participate in raising their children, not what gender they consider themselves to be. At a stretch the issue has to do with gender roles, but that's very different from gender identity.

As for the accusation of social engineering, parenting decisions can't be made independently of the environment in which the parents live. Therefore, any set of laws on parental leave you wish to construct, or even the lack of such laws altogether, will influence parents' decisions.

Kristian brings up evolution to argue that encouraging fathers to take parental leave is unnatural. I guess cavemen weren't aware of what parental benefits they were entitled to, but I'm not sure what that says about the desirability of such policies in today's society.

The post takes a turn for the bizarre when Kristian somehow - I'm not quite sure how it happens - moves from addressing the issue of parental leave for fathers to offering his opinions on sexual minorities. Apparently he was surprised to find out that there are such things as sexual minorities in the world and that they're born that way. No, I don't know what that has to do with parental leave for fathers, either.

For my money, the low point of the article comes in this entirely logic-free snippet:

Although we might surmise that those who support government initiatives to correct such perceived inequities would like to see their own gender identity issues legitimized, I won’t speculate on any possible gender identity issues concerning our Swede [sic], Mr. Wallin.

The title of the post is, naturally, "Does Stefen [sic] Wallin have gender identity issues?" But Kristian won't speculate. Good grief.

PS: The post's URL contains the string "cross-dressers-nancy-boys-stefan-wallin", which may give an idea of its working title.

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 names

The National Coalition Party and the Swedish People's Party have named their ministers.

Despite rumors that the Coalition's party leader Jyrki Katainen would become the Minister for Foreign Affairs, he'll be the next Minister of Finance instead. The finance portfolio is considered the second most powerful in the Cabinet, so taking it makes sense for a party leader whose gravitas has sometimes been questioned. The Minister for Foreign Affairs will instead be Ilkka Kanerva, a veteran politician from Turku. He's been an MP since the '70s and was first made a minister in the '80s. Katainen's right-hand man Jyri Häkämies becomes the Minister of Defense, thus further strengthening the Coalition's foreign policy influence within the Cabinet. Vote king and Coalition strongman Sauli Niinistö, often mentioned as a possible Minister of Foreign Affairs, will become the Speaker of the Parliament.

In a surprise move - a surprise to me, at least - Anne Holmlund will become the Minister of the Interior. Former Minister of Culture Suvi Lindén makes a return to the Cabinet as the Minister of Communication. She had to resign from the previous post because of an appearance of impropriety, but the voters forgave her, so now she's back. There will be two Coalition ministers from Helsinki, Minister of Education Sari Sarkomaa and Minister of Housing Jan Vapaavuori. Vapaavuori is about as right-wing on economic matters as any MP, so it'll be interesting to see what he does about housing. Paula Risikko, who has a doctorate in health science, will become the Minister of Health and Social Services.

The Swedish People's Party had two portfolios to divvy up. Party leader Stefan Wallin will become the Minister of Culture and as such can act as the guardian of bilingualism in cultural pursuits. Astrid Thors will become the Minister of European Affairs and Integration. Thors has already said (fi) that immigration policy will become "more active" to combat aging.

The Green League is scheduled to release their minister list later today and the Centre Party tomorrow.

Vanhanen II - now with more ministers than ever before!

We have an agreement: the next government's program (fi, PDF) and the Cabinet's party division (fi, PDF) are out and proud. I'll comment on the program - nauseatingly titled Responsible, caring, and supportive Finland - later, but for now, the big news is that the number of ministers is going up, up, up from 18 to 20. (I hope they didn't raise the number just to give every party an even number of seats, because that would be enough to drive one to despair.)

Instead of a Minister of Transport and Communication, the new government will have a Minister of Transport and a Minister of Communication. The Minister of EU and Immigration is a new title, as is the Minister of Housing. On the other hand, there won't be a separate Co-ordinate Minister of Finance; that job will be handled by the Minister of Municipal and Administrative Affairs. In addition to the ministerial reshuffle, the ministries themselves will undergo some changes. Notably, the Ministry of Trade and Industry will swallow the the Ministry of Labour to create one super ministry with two ministers, the Ministry of Labour and Commerce.

In any case, here's what party gets what:

Centre Party:

• Prime Minister
• Minister for Foreign Trade and Development
• Minister of Municipal and Administrative Affairs
• Minister of Agriculture and Forestry
• Minister of Transport
• Minister of Trade and Industry
• Minister of Social Affairs and Health
• Minister of the Environment

National Coalition Party:

• Minister for Foreign Affairs (ooh! controversial!)
  
• Minister of the Interior
• Minister of Defense
• Minister of Finance
• Minister of Education
• Minister of Communications
• Minister of Health and Social Services
• Minister of Housing

The Coalition is also reputed to get the post of Speaker of Parliament, so they've done quite well for themselves.

Green League:

• Minister of Justice
• Minister of Labour

Swedish People's Party:

• Minister of EU and Immigration
• Minister of Culture

The Swedish PP should also be pretty pleased with themselves to get two ministers.

Names of ministers will start to dribble out tomorrow and the last ones should be known by Wednesday, I believe.