Finnish Political Parties Explained for Dummies (Part 2)

Written by ST.

Keskusta

Keskusta is a bit of an odd-ball, that seems to have lost its identity in modern times. Keskusta is an agrarian-centrist party, that is focused on ensuring that Finnish agriculture stays strong and that the Finnish countryside continues to thrive and has all the necessary services. The party enjoys 12% backing.

For their most important values, they list responsibility and freedom, commonality and caring, equality and justice, civility, over-generationality and temperance, sustainable relationship to nature, and locality.  That’s a lot! Within these, there is obviously a lot of room for maneuvering, and an old joke states that “Keskusta will always betray you”. 😀In reality, their primary concern is that government subsidies will continue to go to farmers and countryside services, and that the inevitable urbanization of the world will not happen as quickly as it might without them.

Keskusta isn’t free of controversy either, as they have pretty successfully tied the issue of horrible fur farming into the identity of rurality, making it almost impossible to make fur farming illegal in Finland even though a great majority of Finnish people want to make it illegal (yes, fur-farming is still legal in Finland! Please don’t search for any materials from these farms unless you want to cry…).

Vasemmistoliitto

Vasemmisto is the most left-wing major party in Finnish politics. It is probably the closest thing Finland has to the Vietnamese Communist Party, except for the fact that they are strongly anti-authoritarian and extremely socially progressive. In fact, Vasemmistoliitto was originally founded when the Finnish People’s Democratic League was combined with the Finnish Communist Party in 1990! Finland is so strongly anti-communist nowadays that this fact can feel a bit mind-blowing. A typical voter is young, female, with some amount of university education. It enjoys 9.5% backing.

Vasemmistoliitto is most concerned with protecting the weakest of society. They want strong welfare and social support systems, want the richest in the society to pay more taxes, and are very worried about climate change. Vasemmistoliitto is also very vocal about the rights of immigrants, refugees, people struggling with mental health, sexual minorities, and transgender people.

Vihreät

Vihreät is the center-left party historically concerned with nature and justice, but nowadays they are a very socially liberal party with a wide representation from the economic left and the right, sometimes jokingly referred to as the “parks section of Kokoomus”. Vihreät often strives to make science and research-based decision-making, and their voters are mostly between the ages of 18-45, and the most highly educated of all the major parties. The party currently enjoys 8.3% backing.

Their presidential candidate Pekka Haavisto has been the second most popular presidential candidate for many elections now. Perhaps at the next presidential election, Finland will finally have a gay president!

Kristillisdemokraatit

KD is a center-right, faith-based conservative party that was originally founded to oppose communism. They emphasize the role of heterosexual families in society and locality in decision-making. They are a catch-all party for conservative people who are not exclusively focused on opposing immigration—3.6% support.

Despite the above-mentioned features most of their politics are quite mellow, and temperate.

RKP

RKP is the closest thing to a major libertarian party Finland has. They are strongly right-wing while being strongly socially liberal. One of their central concerns is the future of the Swedish language in Finland. Historically the Swedish-speaking population has formed a small upper class of Finnish elite, and some areas in coastal Finland even have a Swedish-speaking majority. Due to these factors, and a significant shared cultural heritage, RKP wishes for Finland to continue to have mandatory Swedish classes in school, and a requirement for all higher government workers to be required to pass a minimum level of Swedish fluency (the level is set really low, so this isn’t really a barrier for many)—3.4% support.

Liike Nyt

A center-right liberal micro-party centered around its founder Harry Harkimo, who has been in danger of getting added to the United States Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List due to possible corruption and illegal deals with Russian oligarchs. Liike Nyt likes entrepreneurship, EU, and their only representative in the parliament is their founder Harry Harkimo. It is somehow popular among some narrow set of young people due to TikTok outreach. 1.7% support.

Other parties

There are also other small parties, that are not popular enough to get any representatives into the parliament. They are mostly curiosities. Some of them do have a coherent ideology, but some just consist of totally insane people. Some are just sad.

Some small parties of note:

• Pirate Party, concerned with privacy and copyright

• Feminist Party, concerned with equality and discrimination against minorities

• Animal Rights Party, concerned with animal suffering and veganism

• Open Party, concerned with science-based decision-making. Largely centered around its founder Petrus Pennanen

• Korjausliike, consisting of people who split from PS in 2017. Nationalism, family, entrepreneurship.

• Liberaalipuolue, the explicitly libertarian party of Finland. Got some fame after releasing a list of 9 billion euros worth of spending cuts.

• The Communist Party of Finland. Mostly a relic consisting of old people. No to NATO, no weapons for Ukraine. The government must take control of energy and medicine production in the short term, and other sectors in the long term.

• Kristallipuolue. Solve problems with magic, all conspiracies are true, and tantric crystal yoga hippie stuff will bring happiness thanks to cosmical dragon Christ rays from the elf dimensions. Also, COVID is fake.

• Valta Kuuluu Kansalle is a populist party that promotes Russian propaganda and Finnish nationalism. Weird, religious, and totally insane.

• Vapauden Liitto, split off from the above because VKK had too clearly a Russian asset.

• Sinimusta Liike, a neo-nazi, fascist party that split off from Perussuomalaiset youth groups in 2022 for being too racist for PS. Advocates for Finnish racial superiority, etc.