The Swedish Folks Party holds the key to the continuation of the farce of Finnish politics. Their 5% share of the popular vote in the last election gives the right-wing block a thin majority in Parliament where the two larger parties each have some 21% shares respectively. The other small party the Christian Democrats (also 5%) appear to think that they should not throw the first stone at the bigots who appear to be openly permitted by the True Finns and now by the Conservatives.
Finland cannot afford to be viewed as a backwater full of neo-national bigots, and that is what is happening now after the successes of the last government.
The Swedish Folk Party has been a bulwark of common sense over the past decades. They have maintained high standards and worked for the common good in addition to the useful objective of maintaining the Swedish language in schools in parallel with the Finnish language.
Finnish is a stranger in the European context, especially so because just 6 million people use it, as opposed to Swedish, which is spoken and understood by some 20 million if you can assume that Danish and Norwegian are close cousins to Swedish, which they are!
The Swedish Folk Party has a group of strong leaders who understandably wanted to join this new government after the election. Their wish was probably to have adults in the room, as well as defending the presence of their language in the Finnish school curriculum.
Foreigners learn Swedish far more quickly than Finnish. Swedish is closely related to English, German, Spanish and French, while the Finnish language only has a tenuous relationship with Estonian and Hungarian! We need foreigners here since we have this fast aging population!
The Swedish Folk Party has an opportunity to remove themselves from this poisonous coalition and that would destroy any hopes of forming a majority government thereafter.
It takes years of consistent hard work to create a good reputation and be taken seriously in the world of global politics, and only minutes to destroy it!
Anecdotal evidence points to the fact that many who voted for the Conservatives are shocked by the behaviour of Mr. Orpo, the leader of the Conservative Party and the current Prime Minister. His continued acceptance of the bigots holding important ministerial posts in his government from the True Finns has destroyed his credibility in the eyes of many voters.
It is time for the Swedish Folk Party to act, and act firmly. It takes years of consistent hard work to create a good reputation and be taken seriously in the world of global politics, and only minutes to destroy it!
