As Elvis sang in Wooden Heart:
“Treat me nice, treat me good
Treat me like you really should…
… Please don’t break my heart in two…”
Voters should be treated with respect, and that means one thing – if promises are made before the election, then after the election they must be kept…
In Finland, this is not being done by the new governing coalition, and there is very little that voters can do to get rid of these cheats:
- The government promised to cut public borrowing. At the time of writing this has not happened – public borrowing is expected to continue to rise in the coming years!
- Two parties, the Conservatives and the Swedish Folk Party, promised to loosen immigration rules to attract foreigners. This has not happened as promised. They promised to ease entry requirements for skilled workers, but so far nothing has emerged to ease the pain of entering the country with a family. Finland remains one of the hardest countries to find work from outside the EU. Opening a bank account, dealing with all the paper work, and getting the children into school are all challenging…
- The government promised economic growth with new policies, but all we are seeing is falling GDP forecasts, record numbers of bankruptcies, falling private consumption, and growing unemployment.
- The present government has permitted senior politicians from the True Finns to remain in government even though they have expressed strongly bigoted remarks concerning Jews and Muslims. These politicians have been only given weak excuses or nothing at all when challenged. A policy paper condemning such remarks has been written by this coalition, but that appears to be a whitewashing event! It is like Putin saying that he nothing to do with the “accident” that caused Wagner’s demise! think carefully what you are prepared to accept as the truth…
- The Swedish Folks Party said that they would not join a coalition with the True Finns, but they did!
- Tax cuts were promised but the biggest winners are those who receive €14 000 a month and more. At the same time, public support for low-income wage earners is being cut at a time when unemployment is growing. Furthermore, private healthcare providers appear to be receiving profitable healthcare opportunities that cost more than public healthcare without any significant productivity gains according to healthcare experts. These are not sustainable policy choices when we were promised economic growth with social equality!
- Labour unrest is clearly developing as the present government is not in the mood to discuss their plans with the unions. Confrontation is a poor way to manage labor policies and is not an efficient way to promote economic growth – quite the opposite!
The next few months will see many dark clouds on the horizon of which rising unemployment, falling GDP numbers, and strikes are all pretty certain..
