Perussuomalaiset ("True Finns"), a populist right-wing party, did well in the local council elections last Sunday along with Kokoomus ("National coalition party", also to the right), gaining 5.4 % of the votes. I'm watching a few YouTube videos & reading a few articles to be more informed about what this party & Timo Soini are about. (I just realized I still have a bottle of Absinth at home. Good.) The first thing that struck me while watching an interview he did last year was the proficient use of third person references. "This is the Soini opinion." "This is the way Soini thinks." Perussuomalaiset are true to the populist tradition in their constant insistence of "suoraa puhetta" (a politician who "tells it like it is"). A rule of thumb with regards to politics is, I think, that politicians who see the need to back up their opinions by emphasizing how "honest" and "frank" they are, should not be taken to provide the best description of themselves. A blog post published on Helsingin Sanomat's home page discussing the result in Vantaa sums up a quite common attitude to the election results:
Perussuomalaisten vaalivoitto tuo varmasti melkoisen piristysruiskeen valtuustokeskusteluihin. Puolueen kuusi tuoretta valtuutettua tietävät ratsastavansa protestiäänillä ja ovat varmasti valmiita haastamaan vanhat vallanpitäjät. Haaste on tervetullut. [....] Jos hyvin käy, perussuomalaisten ryhmä tuo politiikan takaisin Vantaan politiikkaan. (The election success will probably bring with it an energy injection for the council discussions. The 6 newly elected council members know that they are dependent on protest votes and they are probably ready to challenge the power elite. This is a healty challenge. [....] In the best case scenario, the True Finns will bring politics back to the Vantaa politicians.) Source.
I am not very convinced by this prospect. I would be hard pressed to talk about the True Finns as an "energy injection" because that seems to presuppose that a populist party's "challenging" of the mainstream in itself will mean that there will be plenty of room for real political struggles, alternatives or discussions in what is taken to be an otherwise gray scale with no political differences. As if the other parties will feel that they have to take a stand on the issues raised by The True Finns - be it questions about immigration or something else - meaning that this will bear with it deeper reflection on these issues. I am afraid that the opposite is the case. Some political analyst has already said that successful populist parties usually will make "mainstream" parties approach their political language. I think there is a point in that. But even more important is, I think, to point out the mistaken hope that provocations have something to do with real conversations or honest reflection. If you say that the True Finns are dependent on protest voters, and thus that they are trying to prey on some quite undefined level of resentment or opposition to "politicians" then I think we have already closed down the possibility that this particular political stance could be an inspiring "energy injection". How about Dansk Folkeparti, Fremskrittspartiet or Jörg Haider's lot - or Berlusconi - have they functioned as "energy injections" for the political climate in Denmark, Norway or Austria or Italia? Well, I don't think so.
Of course people protest against populist parties. They piss a lot of people off. A big march was organized in Italy recently, in which it became apparent that a large portion of Italians are not so happy with the way politics is done right now. But if I would define populism I would characterize it as a silencing of serious discussion. Timo Soini doesn't want to discuss immigration. He has already decided that Finns are a united people and that "we" should have a right to "our" country.
When being interviewed by journalists, Soini and fellow party members are always confronted with questions about to what extent they prescribe to racist politics. The normal way in which the question is shrugged off is by repeating some mantra: "When in Rome...." or bland claims according to which The True Finns are not "racist per se" but that they are "simply" sceptical of immigration and "multiculturalism".
I cannot for the world see in what way these types of statements would be "energy injections".
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