Shop Now | Strong accusations from a former party colleague – Harkimo does not comment, Jungner wonders about the claims

In June former Liike Nyti party board member and MP candidate who resigned from the party Kristian Meurman blame in his blog post party chairman Harry Harkimoa of various abuses.

Meurman, who has sat in the party board since the summer of 2022, claims that Harkimo would have lied in public about the number of party members, acted against the lines of his own party’s party board and prevented Meurman from running for the party leadership. He was the first to tell about it Evening newspaper.

Harkimo himself says via text message that he “will not comment on the whole matter”.

Meurman accuses not only Harkimo but also the person in the party board of watering down the campaign for the chairman Mikael Jungner.

Meurman himself did not participate in the latest party meeting, but according to his own words, he had previously announced in writing that he would run for the party leadership.

“However, when the party meeting came, chairman Harkimo and the chairman of the party meeting Jungner decided that my name would not be read in connection with the election of the party chairman, but chairman Harkimo would be presented without a counter-candidate,” Meurman writes.

Meurman says that he filed a complaint about the party meeting with the parliamentary ombudsman, a criminal complaint with the Helsinki police department, a censure lawsuit with the Helsinki district court, and that he notified the data protection commissioner’s office about the unauthorized storage of his personal data.

HS has not been able to confirm Meurman’s account of his complaints and reports.

Jungner says that he is surprised by Meurman’s claims. According to him, in addition to the fact that Meurman did not arrive at the meeting place, no one nominated him in the presidential election either. Jungner has not seen Meurman’s email about running for office.

“If I had known that Kristian was interested in this position, I would of course have told him that he should come and agree with someone that someone would nominate him for the position,” says Jungner.

Jungner does not assess Meurman’s motives for writing his blog post.

“After all, it was a flighty and clearly angry piece of writing. In the meetings of the party board, where I myself have been present, Kristian has been quite moderate. So I can’t say where this disgust has come from,” says Jungner.

He does not sign the allegations against Harkimo either.

“Of course, each of us lives in our own reality, certainly Kristian seriously wrote that text. There must have been a bit of emotional upheaval and other things involved.”

HS told in 2022, that Liike Nyt is badly in debt to Harkimo’s company. At that time, the debt was almost 830,000 euros. Emeritus professor of administrative science at the University of Vaasa Ari Salminen assessed the arrangement as “slightly special” at the time, because it may be difficult to challenge the person who gave the loan within the party.

According to Meurman, today the debt would be closer to 900,000 euros. He also claims in his blog that Harkimo would have threatened to leave the party if he gets a counter-candidate in the presidential election.

“In practice, this also means bankruptcy of the party, because most of the debts are to Harkimo’s company,” Meurman writes.

According to Meurman, he also resigned from the party Nora Stenvall would therefore have withdrawn from the chairmanship race.

Stenvall denies this and says that the decision not to run at all was the result of extensive consideration and was influenced by many factors. According to Stenvall, Harkimo has not threatened to leave the party either.

Nowadays, Stenvall is influential in the ranks of the coalition.