Sdp | The government is not committed to its own anti-racism program, says Sdp’s Lindtman

Past week has shown that not all government parties are committed to the government’s anti-racism program, even though the prime minister Petteri Orpo (kok) has said so in public, says the chairman of the Sdp Antti Lindtman.

“Yes, it is descriptive that the theme of this campaign is ‘we speak with actions’ and the first act of the governing parties was to pull the rug from under the campaign and downplay the whole problem,” says Lindtman, referring to HS, the chairman of the parliamentary group of basic Finns Jani Mäkelän to the comments.

Mäkelä has referred to the campaign as a “posturing campaign” and said that the racist outcry that led to its creation last summer was fake and machine-made from abroad, and the goal was to overthrow the government and get the Basic Finns out of power.

“Basic Finns are acting again in the same way as they were criticized for last summer. In other words, under compulsion, we say just as much as is needed about the equality of people and then immediately after with the other hand, messages are sent that downplay the existence of the problem and anti-racist actions in society,” says Lindtman.

Outward according to Lindtman, it seemed that first the prime minister says one thing, and then the government partner Perussuomalaiset pulls the rug from under their feet.

“And apparently he does it on purpose,” says Lindtman.

Lindtman also wonders why the coalition or Rkp have not done anything about it. According to him, the situation will continue as long as the Prime Minister and other government parties allow it.

Lindtman’s According to to the charter against racism.

The last time all parties renewed their signatures was in 2015, and before that in 2011. At that time, Basic Finns was still led by Timo Soini.

“I don’t think that any party from the opposition would not do this. Our party secretary has already approached colleagues and presented this as a task,” says Lindtman.

On Saturday Sdp celebrated its 125th anniversary in Helsinki’s Paasitorni. In his celebratory speech, Lindtman reviewed the history of the party and emphasized its position as an opponent of both the extreme right and the extreme left.

Recently, the SDP’s relationship with the right and the left has also been discussed on the pages of the party’s newspaper Demokraati.

For example, the party’s former member of parliament and MEP Lasse Lehtinen has warned in his textthat “the danger from the left is definitely a greater threat to social democracy than from the right” and referred to the Dem MPs who voted against the so-called conversion law.

Lindtman says that he does not want to decide himself whether the biggest threat to social democracy comes from the right or the left.

“I’m not going to define Sdp through threats. Personally, I think that the most important task of Sdp is to offer answers to the problems that Finland is facing at this time,” says Lindtman.

According to Lindtman, the party’s task today could be summed up as that it should “make sure that Finland becomes the world’s first carbon-neutral welfare society”.

Last the election has shown that it is a considerable number of voterswho move nimbly between the Sdp, the Greens and the Left Alliance.

Is there a danger that the Sdp will not differentiate itself sufficiently from, for example, the Greens and the Left Alliance?

“I understand this specifically that the Sdp is the one that sets the agenda for the future and the others then react to it. In this case, Sdp is the strongest main alternative to the government’s policy and the biggest force for reforming society,” states Lindtman.