Author Topic: Finnish conservative wins presidential election  (Read 3856 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline kefkaownsall

  • The Beast
  • *****
  • Posts: 3253
  • Gender: Male
Finnish conservative wins presidential election
« on: February 05, 2012, 09:51:26 pm »
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16900102
I know that the role is symbolic and all but I really hope this does not mean a general shift towards the right.  :-\

Offline Cataclysm

  • The Beast
  • *****
  • Posts: 2458
Re: Finnish conservative wins presidential election
« Reply #1 on: February 05, 2012, 09:59:17 pm »
He's probably more less Right than the "liberal" politicians in America.
I'd be more sympathetic if people here didn't act like they knew what they were saying when they were saying something very much wrong.

Quote
Commenter Brendan Rizzo is an American (still living there) who really, really hates America. He used to make posts defending his country from anti-American attacks but got fed up with it all.

Offline kefkaownsall

  • The Beast
  • *****
  • Posts: 3253
  • Gender: Male
Re: Finnish conservative wins presidential election
« Reply #2 on: February 05, 2012, 10:42:44 pm »
I just fear Europe will be shifting to the right with these austerity measures etc.  One consequence of this shift sadly is Islamophobia

Offline SCarpelan

  • The Beast
  • *****
  • Posts: 1084
Re: Finnish conservative wins presidential election
« Reply #3 on: February 05, 2012, 11:14:52 pm »
I wouldn't worry too much about the result of the election. Not only is the role of the president mostly seremonial but the election is also more about the candidates as persons than their party affiliations. Yes, Sauli Niinistö is a conservative but he's also a mainstream moderate who has no connections to the xenophobic elements of the right wing. He is economically conservative and had the suppport of the big money behind him but he's also fairly liberal socially compared to most of the right wing politicians. I would never vote for his party National Coalition in a parliamentary election and didn't vote for him in the presidential election either but I think he'll make a fairly good president. He'll have very little power in the issues where I disagree with him the most and in the foreign policy issues where the president has actual power he should do fine.

The shift to the right was much better represented by the parliamentary elections last year that resulted in the National Coalition becoming the biggest party and The Finns becoming a major player. In fact the result of the presidential election has been seen as a backlash against this development since the major surprise was the Green Party candidate Pekka Haavisto gathering enough votes for a second place and giving an actual challenge to Niinistö. Niinistö on the other hand had been the obvious favourite of this election since having lost with only a small margin to Tarja Halonen in the previous election six years ago.

Offline kefkaownsall

  • The Beast
  • *****
  • Posts: 3253
  • Gender: Male
Re: Finnish conservative wins presidential election
« Reply #4 on: February 05, 2012, 11:24:47 pm »
Thanks for the insight
for the record what I mean by shift to the right is in almost all countries there has been a massive shift in that direction with Harper gaining control in Canada, Cameron in UK, Christian Democrats in Netherlands (screw their ally the PPV party BTW)
The last one is particularly disturbing since it threatens to make Indonesia hate the west
« Last Edit: February 05, 2012, 11:28:22 pm by kefkaownsall »

Offline Askold

  • Definitely not hiding a dark secret.
  • Global Moderator
  • The Beast
  • *****
  • Posts: 8358
  • Gender: Male
Re: Finnish conservative wins presidential election
« Reply #5 on: February 06, 2012, 02:04:59 am »
Few other things of note:

Some experts are saying that Haavisto lost the election because he is an homosexual living in a registered relationship with another man, did not serve in the military and is not a member of the church.
 
For some people these were seen as the deciding factor. But the funny thing is that even though Haavisto is an "icky homo" his stance on homosexual marriage is nearly identical with Niinistö. When questioned about the subject they both wanted to change the laws so that homosexual couples will get all the same rights as heterosexual couples AND neither of them want to force the chuch to do same-sex marriages. The only difference is that the current law calls same-sex marriage a "rekisteröity parisuhde" "registered relationship" and Haavisto would rename it to marriage while Niinistö would keep the old (silly) name.

Personally I prefer Niinisto but that is mostly because I feel that the green party is composed of hipsters, hippies, art students and other people with no contact to the real world.
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline kefkaownsall

  • The Beast
  • *****
  • Posts: 3253
  • Gender: Male
Re: Finnish conservative wins presidential election
« Reply #6 on: February 06, 2012, 02:15:29 am »
Few other things of note:

Some experts are saying that Haavisto lost the election because he is an homosexual living in a registered relationship with another man, did not serve in the military and is not a member of the church.
 
For some people these were seen as the deciding factor. But the funny thing is that even though Haavisto is an "icky homo" his stance on homosexual marriage is nearly identical with Niinistö. When questioned about the subject they both wanted to change the laws so that homosexual couples will get all the same rights as heterosexual couples AND neither of them want to force the chuch to do same-sex marriages. The only difference is that the current law calls same-sex marriage a "rekisteröity parisuhde" "registered relationship" and Haavisto would rename it to marriage while Niinistö would keep the old (silly) name.

Personally I prefer Niinisto but that is mostly because I feel that the green party is composed of hipsters, hippies, art students and other people with no contact to the real world.
I would like to point out that registered partnerships emotionally carry nowhere near the same value.  I dunno when do you think gay marriage will get legalized in Finland

Offline SCarpelan

  • The Beast
  • *****
  • Posts: 1084
Re: Finnish conservative wins presidential election
« Reply #7 on: February 06, 2012, 03:13:39 am »
Few other things of note:

Some experts are saying that Haavisto lost the election because he is an homosexual living in a registered relationship with another man, did not serve in the military and is not a member of the church.
 
For some people these were seen as the deciding factor. But the funny thing is that even though Haavisto is an "icky homo" his stance on homosexual marriage is nearly identical with Niinistö. When questioned about the subject they both wanted to change the laws so that homosexual couples will get all the same rights as heterosexual couples AND neither of them want to force the chuch to do same-sex marriages. The only difference is that the current law calls same-sex marriage a "rekisteröity parisuhde" "registered relationship" and Haavisto would rename it to marriage while Niinistö would keep the old (silly) name.

Personally I prefer Niinisto but that is mostly because I feel that the green party is composed of hipsters, hippies, art students and other people with no contact to the real world.
A nice strawman there. Besides, I don't think you can honestly say Haavisto as an individual is any of those things and the winning candidate does resign from his party when he becomes the president. Amusingly Haavisto himself said during his campaign that he thinks his Green Party affiliation is a more serious concern for the voters than his homosexuality. I guess the future political research will prove which was the bigger issue. Personally, I have been lately very disappointed with the Green Party but voted for Haavisto anyway since he simply was the most qualified candidate whose opinions I could mostly agree with.

I really disliked Niinistö's "separate but equal" stand on the same sex marriage. While it's much better than the stand many other candidates had it has an annoying feeling of trying to have your cake and eat it too when it comes to the debate. He seemed to just try not to alienate either side too much. This is one of those things the president doesn't have any actual power over, though, ("values leadership" only) and I think I would have voted for him if he'd been against any other candidate on the second round. Despite agreeing with Paavo Arhinmäki and Eva Biaudét on many issues I don't think they would have had the foreign policy experience needed for the job (not to mention they had no chance of reaching the second round anyway).

Offline Askold

  • Definitely not hiding a dark secret.
  • Global Moderator
  • The Beast
  • *****
  • Posts: 8358
  • Gender: Male
Re: Finnish conservative wins presidential election
« Reply #8 on: February 06, 2012, 03:52:11 am »
Don't get me wrong I know there are sane, smart and talented people in the green party just like in all the others and I shouldn't judge them based on a small part of their voters but I JUST HATE THEIR GUTS!

They go on saying "all out parliament members can vote based on their conscience." (All other parties in Finland have some official stance on most matters and member either vote according to it or lose membership, some rare matters of conscience are excempt.) You know what this means? it means that all the candidates have their own personal agenda and unless the one you voted gets to the parliament then the vote you gave might go to support someone with very different agenda. It kinda defeats the purpose of having a party. Besides the party has a history of childish stunts.

But yeah, I don't really have anything against Haavisto, I just hate his political party.

As for the "separate but equal," yeah that is stupid and I think we will get rid of it some time soon. Besides when the registered-relationship is functionally same as marriage there will be one more reason for renaming it.
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline SCarpelan

  • The Beast
  • *****
  • Posts: 1084
Re: Finnish conservative wins presidential election
« Reply #9 on: February 06, 2012, 04:58:14 am »
I think you are exaggerating the issue about voting with your concience. I checked a couple of dozen random voting results in the Parliament during the last couple of years and only one of them had split the Green vote(7-2). When a party has a cohesive ideology which the members agree about they will vote as a unified block most of the time. That said, I don't like at all the direction the Green Party has taken during the last few years and voted for Haavisto despite his party affiliation, not because of it.