Petteri Orpo wanted to unite the liberals and conservatives of his party by talking about the economy. But does the message of a common economic vision work when the government is sailing from one crisis to another, asks HS’s political editor Robert Sundman.
The coalition Congressman Ville Valkonen joked on Tuesday on Twitter with “imagination exercise”.
Board member “A” does not agree to do “nothing”. Party B, on the other hand, does not agree to do “anything” and does not want C involved. C agrees to do and not to do, D would agree to do but does not want to participate at all.
You don’t have to be a keen observer of politics to understand which parties Valkonen means. The conclusion of the reasoning is that the coalition must be in the same government as the Basic Finns (C), because the Sdp (B) would not agree to do “anything”.
“Anything” means of course Petteri Orpon (kok) the government’s program, which in many respects can be considered a negotiating victory for the coalition.
Its labor market and economic policies were, in the opinion of many bourgeois, even better than they had dared to hope for.
Maybe if something seems too good to be true, it often is. The joy of the program has been taken away by the government’s dramatic beginnings, which have been limited to the first few weeks immediate ministerial resignation, rules of the game discussions mixed a rare statement condemning racism and violence – among other things.
Many members of the Communist Party have found themselves wondering what is the appropriate price for the adjustment measures of their dreams.
Orphan the government is not unified in terms of values, but neither has the coalition traditionally been.
The members of the coalition have used to say that the party, as its name suggests, “brings together” bourgeois-minded Finns.
In recent years, the saying has been offered as an answer especially to how the most liberal and conservative values and MPs can fit into the same party. At times, there have been strong sparks – for example, during the last municipal elections, when Kirsi Piha left as the coalition’s mayoral candidate and later backed away from his candidacy dramatically.
Orpo, who has led the party since 2016, has tried to reconcile value conflicts by focusing on the economy. The party’s parliamentary election campaign with its advertisements was also based on this: someone has to “clean up the mess” left behind by the previous government.
Emphasis has practically created a situation where Perussuomalaiset is the only possible partner for the coalition with the current power relations. Everything depends on financial decisions that could not be implemented together with others.
Valkonen’s cryptic tweet in the middle of a heated situation alluded to that. The SDP would of course agree to do “anything”, but not enough from this point of view – after all, it was under the leadership of the previous, stale government.
And if the party’s forces have been united with the promise of making a right-wing economic policy, breaking the promise – such as changing the government partner to the Dems – might cost the coalition a decent amount of support and Orpo the presidency.
That’s why the government can stay standing if it depends on the coalition.
To the economy concentration may have solved one of the coalition’s problems at the time, but with this government composition, it gave birth to another instead. The coalition is trapped when it tries to keep the government afloat at least long enough for an important program to be put into practice.
The more crisis-ridden the situation has become, the weaker Orpo’s message about the economic vision that unites the government has worked.
The party has already faced many embarrassing situations in the past few weeks. Because the coalition had to convince that it wants to keep the government together, the group leader had time Matias Marttinen promise to speak publicly Saara-Sofia to Sirén Minister of Economic Affairs Vilhelm Junnilan abstaining from a vote of confidence. The next day there was no more trust and Junnila resigned.
When the chairmen of the governing parties on Tuesday divided statement condemning discrimination and Orpo thanked his “colleague Riikka” for the right solution, said the speaker Jussi Halla-aho (ps) describe to Ilta-Sanom the public debate as reminiscent of “psychosis”.
There is no guarantee that the humiliations will not continue.
On Tuesday in a statement, the government promised to bring to the parliament the Government’s communication “on the promotion of equality, equality and non-discrimination in Finnish society” in the fall.
Based on the notifications, the parliament can also vote on the confidence of the government or an individual minister.
As the pace of politics accelerates, the possibility of the government falling is often overestimated. Often governments stay together.
However, it is a good question whether the government will have time to go into crisis before the autumn discussions or during them – and at what point the crisis will also start to turn into an internal crisis of the prime minister’s party.
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