Column|Basic Finns referred to the population exchange theory without mentioning it by name, writes Helsingin Sanomat’s political editor Marko Junkkari in his column.
Population changes, problems pile up. This was the title of the event held by basic Finns on Wednesday evening at Botta in Helsinki. It directly referred to a population exchange – that is, favored by the extreme right Great Replacement – to the conspiracy theory, according to which the elite is about to carry out a large population exchange in Western countries, where the white population would be replaced by people from elsewhere. The underlying idea is that the elite would somehow benefit from this exchange.
Chairman of Basic Finns, Minister of Finance Riikka Purra underlined Botta on stage that the Fundamental Finns do not believe in conspiracy theories. “We have no need to flirt with conspiracy theories. We just look at the statistics,” Purra said. According to Purra, it is about the fact that the birth rate in Finland is falling and immigration is increasing, which leads to a change in the population base.
“Statistical data,” Purra said.
Statistical data, exactly. Perusfinomalieset therefore organized an event in the name of which flirted with the conspiracy theory. This was clearly deliberate and deliberate. Purra was well aware of the conundrum arising from the name of this event, because he took the initiative to emphasize on stage that it is not a conspiracy theory. That is, before anyone had actually even blamed basic Finns for the matter.
This begs the question, why on earth do the Fundamental Finns deliberately give the election a name that they know leads to the interpretation of flirting with the conspiracy theory of the extreme right – if they specifically don’t want it to happen this way.
Riikka Purra’s speech on Botta’s stage had nothing to suggest conspiracies – except that she denied flirting with them. Instead, he sounded like the finance minister, who spoke about immigration very matter-of-factly and based on facts.
This is the double communication of basic Finns, which they are known to be good at.
Bite claimed in his speech at Botta that these European elections are the first elections in history where immigration is discussed as a separate theme in the presidential elections.
This is not quite true, because immigration has been talked about in previous elections as well. I myself have asked related questions to chairpersons in election exams on many occasions in recent years.
Purra is right, however, that immigration has hardly ever featured extensively in election debates before. The Rwandan model has been used in every exam, and it will probably continue again today in Yle’s election exam.
One would think that this favors basic Finns, because immigration is their bread and butter. It is the block of politics that the party owns. Besides, the far-right is generally expected to have good success in the European elections at the EU level.
Mightily publishing on Thursday morning in the European election survey basic Finns’ support for the European elections had risen by as much as 2.4 percentage points to 16.5 percent compared to May. If this result were to materialize, the party would increase its number of MPs from two to three.
The result of Yle’s survey was somewhat surprising, as the parliamentary election support of the parties was also published in the same context. The support of basic Finns had decreased by 0.8 percentage points to 14.8 percent. The figure means that, compared to the 2023 parliamentary election result, about 170,000 voters would have been lost from the supporters of Basic Finns. That’s a huge number. A large part of them have probably moved to the stands, so to speak, that is, they are not voting for another party either.
However, according to Yle’s European election survey, many of those who moved to the stands would vote for basic Finns in the European elections. Will it really work like this, we’ll see on Sunday. Opinion polls are always uncertain. On Wednesday at Botta, the background influencers of Basic Finns were very worried that many of the party’s supporters would not vote in the European elections.
Although the Rwanda model is being discussed in the election exams, immigration is not actually at the top of voters’ minds at the moment. For example, the background data of the Party Barometer survey conducted by the parties in March shows that immigration is only in 12th place among people’s concerns. For example, five years ago, at the time of the previous European elections, immigration was the second biggest concern.
This is probably the reason why the Basic Finns consider it necessary to flirt with conspiracy theories by claiming that they do not flirt with conspiracy theories.
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