fDomestic’s new government is scrambling to limit the damage amid further scandals over racist statements by government officials. Prime Minister Petteri Orpo and Finance Minister Riikka Purra spoke to the press in Helsinki on Wednesday. Orpo said he trusts Purro. The leader of the right-wing populist base Finns, in turn, apologized for racist comments, but at the same time justified them as a “kind of insider humor”.
Purra had already apologized on Tuesday for the comments she had written on the blog of former party leader and current parliament speaker Jussi Halla-aho. He was once convicted of hate speech on his blog.
Purra wrote there, among other things, about people with a migration background on a commuter train, if someone gave them a gun, there would be deaths. She also wrote about “Turkish monkeys” and expressed violent fantasies about spitting on beggars or hitting “Negro children”.
“I’m not a perfect person”
Screenshots of the entries have been circulating in Finland for months. Initially, Purra wrote on Twitter that it would “never occur to her” to step down or regret what she once wrote. On Tuesday, however, apologize for the “stupid” comments. “I’m not a perfect person, I’ve made mistakes,” she said.
On Tuesday evening, the four party leaders of the governing coalition published a statement in which they spoke out in favor of the rule of law, democracy, human rights and equal treatment. It states, among other things: “The government and each of its ministers condemn racism and all forms of extremism and undertake in their work to actively combat racism both in Finland and internationally.”
Finland’s new conservative, right-wing populist government has only been in office for three weeks. Economics Minister Vilhelm Junnila (based Finns) resigned after just eleven days because he had appeared at a far-right event in 2019 and had repeatedly made far-right allusions. Junnila initially survived a vote of no confidence in Parliament.
But then Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö took an unusually clear position on the scandal. Niinistö is usually bipartisan and avoids commenting on domestic politics. But he described the affair as “at least very embarrassing for the government”. Regarding the Purra entries scandal, he said it would be wise and a good signal to the world if the Finnish government pursued “clear zero tolerance of racism”. Shortly thereafter, Purra apologized.
President Niinistö is held in high esteem in Finland and his word carries weight. But the seventy-four-year-old’s term of office will soon come to an end. Niinistö will not always be able to fix it, the Iltai Sanomat newspaper commented on Wednesday. Orpo itself is obliged to take action.
Clean up the “mess”?
After lengthy coalition negotiations, the prime minister forged an alliance between his conservative National Coalition Party, the right-wing populist grassroots Finns, the Swedish People’s Party and the Christian Democrats, which is planning economic and social reforms. The public debt, which has risen sharply recently, is also to be reduced.
During the election campaign, Orpo’s party campaigned with the slogan that someone had to clean up the “mess” left by the previous red-green government. However, the Finnish media are increasingly questioning whether the government is capable of doing this given the many scandals. It is expected that further misconduct will become known.
There are also accusations against the new interior minister, Mari Rantane (base Finns), who, like many other members of her party, had repeatedly used the far-right combat term “population exchange” in connection with immigration. From the point of view of researchers, such attitudes are mainstream in the party. As long as this is the case, according to the Finnish media, explanations against racism will also help.
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