The Left Alliance is allowed to continue in the government despite breaking the rules of the game, HS’s political editor Teemu Muhonen writes in his analysis.
Board agreement the patient safety law collapsed when the Left Alliance split almost in two in Monday’s decisive vote.
Seven representatives of the left-wing union – including the party leadership – voted in favor of the law restricting nurses’ right to strike. No less than five left-wing representatives voted against the government’s proposal. Four representatives were absent. Among them is a former minister who was on sick leave Aino-Kaisa Pekonen and MP Pia Lohikoski told on social media opposition to the law.
Read more: The Parliament approved the Patient Safety Act, the Left Alliance split – The graphic shows how the MPs voted
Result was quite an awkward chairman For Li Andersson and group leader For Jussi Saramo. As recently as Friday, Andersson assured In an interview with HS, that he has always had the full support of the group. If it had been until then, then at the latest in Monday’s vote, the people pulled the rug from under Andersson’s feet.
After long negotiations, the Left Alliance had received many relaxations in the bill and the party leadership acknowledged the end result. According to Saramo, the parliamentary group decided to vote in favor of the Patient Safety Act. Still, only a minority did so, i.e. seven out of the sixteen MPs of the parliamentary group. The party clearly broke the government’s internal rules of the game.
Also, for example, many representatives in the Sdp and the Greens would have liked to vote against the law, but their group discipline held. Several representatives of these governing parties were absent from the vote, but no one voted to reject the law.
Left Alliance was ultimately unable to properly support or oppose the limitation of nurses’ labor struggles. This is how it managed to anger both the nursing unions and government partners.
Group leader Saramo appeared humbly in front of the media after the vote. He said that he hopes that the Left Alliance will be allowed to continue in the government. Saramo’s wish will probably come true.
The government partners have not yet made decisions about the possible consequences. However, based on information leaked from government sources on Monday evening, the other parties have no desire to show the left-wing coalition the door.
According to the assessments of the board partners, Andersson and Saramo tried hard to keep their group together, but despite their efforts, they did not succeed. The position of the party leadership is reason enough to keep the Left Alliance involved.
Sdp doesn’t want to let another left-wing party say in the fall before the election that it got the boot from the government for defending the rights of caregivers.
Saramon according to the parliamentary group of the left-wing coalition on Thursday, sanctions to be imposed on the five MPs who voted against.
It’s possible that Anna Kontula, Katja Hänninen, Markus Mustajärvi, Jari Myllykoski and Suldan Said Ahmed survive with warnings. However, such a light sanction could seem as if the Left Alliance got a partial freedom of dissent in the government in the handling of the Patient Safety Act.
Then also the representatives of other parties can easily take exemptions for themselves in the remaining votes of the session.
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