Paavo Väyrynen: a Fallen Legend Trying a Comeback
Let's talk about a legend of Finnish politics: Paavo Väyrynen. The man is one of the longest serving politicians in Finland, having been elected to parliament in 1970, served as a minister in eight governments, a total of 5997 days and held pretty much every political office apart from president and prime minister. He's without a doubt a living legend, however, recently he has done some questionable choices.
Now, I've talked about Väyrynen in the past, especially during last years presidential election and later I talked about his exploits in another post. But again in summary: for the longest time, Väyrynen was a member of the Center Party. He was the party's leader between 1980 and 1990 and until last year was considered the party's honorary chairman. Suddenly in 2016, he announced plans to create his own political party, claiming that the Center Party had gone too far from its roots. The new party called the Citizen's Party made party registry later that year and Väyrynen naturally served as its first leader, though he abandoned the post soon after. Despite forming his own party he refused to resign his membership in the Center Party causing some drama, which I explained in the posts linked above. In 2018 he ran for president as an independent, ultimately falling short for the fourth time. After the election he suddenly announced plans to challenge Prime Minister Juha Sipilä for the Center Party's leadership (again, he hadn't resigned from the party) in an effort to "save" the party. Soon after this announcement he was suddenly fired by the Citizen's Party, with the official reason being the misuse of party funds during his presidential run. This is where we left off since the last time we spoke about the man.
After being fired from the Citizen's Party Väyrynen challenged the decision in court and actually won. Although I originally wondered how he could possibly argue this case, the reason is actually pretty simple. According to Finnish law you generally can't just fire somebody, you have to give them a warning that they are in danger of being fired, which I think is fair because it gives the person a chance to change their attitude. In the case of Väyrynen the Citizen's Party didn't do this. They simply called a board meeting in which they decided to fire Väyrynen. And that's the other thing: the agenda of a board meeting has to be announced in advance to the people taking part and apparently, that wasn't done either.
Now since this whole thing went through, it briefly looked like Väyrynen might just return to the Center Party. After all, he was running for party leader and due to the infighting within the Citizen's Party caused by his decision it seemed the party simply couldn't take off. Then suddenly, he abandoned his bid for party leader, resigned from his membership in both the Center and Citizen's parties and announced the formation of yet another party called the Seven Star Movement. This new movement was officially registered as a political party in late 2018 and let's just say it's launch hasn't gone too well.
The Seven Star Movement announced its first candidates for the election in early January. One of the candidates was a man named Börje Börgelson, who soon turned out to be non existent. Yes, a party led by a political veteran of nearly 50 years was running a candidate that didn't exist. Not only that but the last name Börgelson is non existent as well, as in nobody in Finland has that name. How did this happen? Party representatives have claimed they contacted the man through email and talked to him by phone. Problem is that when the party allowed reporters to see the information Mr. Börgelson had sent them when volunteered to be a candidate, turned out he hadn't given them his phone number because he "didn't remember it" and asked to be contacted through email. So, if the party doesn't have his phone number, how could they have contacted him by phone? This doesn't really add up. It seems the Seven Star Movement is simply so desperate to get people to run for them that they haven't bothered to properly check who's running.
Then there's what really inspired to write post: on the 11th of February it came out that Väyrynen is working together with a man named Ilja Janitskin. Janitskin is most well known as the founder of MV-lehti, an alternative media site which is mostly known for spreading conspiracy theories, fake news and racism, blatantly copying news from other sources, attacking people who criticize it and generally anything negative. In October 2018 Janitskin was convicted from various crimes connected to the sites operations, including multiple cases of aggravated defamation, revealing restricted information, organizing illegal fundraisers, copyright infringement and incitement against an ethnic group, just to name the one's I can translate to English in a somewhat concise way. So needless to say the man is considered bit of a controversial figure. Janitskin planning to run for parliament as a candidate for the independent Reformi-movement, which is full of these right-wing populists who tend to attact against anybody who doesn't agree with them.
So, why are these two working together? Well the obvious idea would be to form an alliance. When questioned about working with Janitskin, Väyrynen stated that the two have similar goals in mind so in that sense an alliance would make sense. After all, Finland elects politicians under proportional representation. However, Väyrynen already struck down this idea. Instead the plan seems to be working together with image building. You see, Väyrynen has been pissed at the media for not giving enough exposure to his new party (even though he's been in the news all the time because of his exploits, but whatever), meanwhile Janitskin is the founder of an "alternative media" site. So apparently, Väyrynen is planning to use MV-lehti to get past the mainstream media to get exposure, while working together with a veteran politician like Väyrynen would give Janitskin a chance to fix his questionable reputation. This is really the only way any of this makes sense to me.
Now, I guess we have to talk about the Citizen's Party briefly as well. How have they been doing since Väyrynen left? Well, they're getting ready for the election, but I can't help feeling bit of desperation from their side as well. They have actually announced two alliances with two different parties: in one constituency they are teaming up with Blue Reform, which I covered in my previous post. The more surprising one is an alliance with Suomen Kansa Ensin (SKE), which translates to Finnish people first. This is what really gives out the feeling of desperation in my opinion. Now, I'll probably cover SKE in a separate post, because it honestly deserves it. The party was only registered in December last year, but despite that it's already split into two factions which are fighting over control,. Not only that the party originally split off from an earlier group due to infighting. There's so much drama here I simply can't make it justice in this post, so I'll leave it for the future.
After last years presidential election I made a post speculating about the future based on the election result. In that I predicted that Väyrynen could lead the Citizen's Party into a surprise victory in the future. If you remember, it was pretty clear before the election that president Sauli Niinistö would win re-election, which he did with 62.8% of the vote. Väyrynen finished fourth with 6.2% of the vote, which is fairly good considering the nature and the ultimate outcome of the election. More importantly, he beat the Center Party candidate Matti Vanhanen. So based on the results, I thought he could pull a major upset in next parliamentary elections. After all, the man seemed to have support, even within the Center Party, so he could theoretically pull votes from there. In fact, Citizen's Party's current leadership is formed mostly by former Center Party members, so he already had done that. But now...
Well, recenty a city council member representing the Center Party publicly announced support for Väyrynen and that they would run for the Seven Star Movement in this years election. So he still seems to hold support within his former party. So in short, I still think he could pull something off. That being said, the man seems delusional. In the past he has claimed to believe that the party could get one MP elected from every constituency. Finland is divided into 13 constituencies with on of them being the autonomous region of Åland with it's own political system so it doesn't count here, meaning the party would have to win 12 seats in the election. This is something I simply don't see happening. Even though Väyrynen clearly still has support, he has done so much damage to his political legacy in recent years that I can't think of him as a major political player anymore. But ultimately, with his name recognition, I still think he's the most likely candidate to pull off a surprise victory.
The Citizen's Party on the other hand... Well, they're trying to do the right thing. The Finnish political system makes it hard for new parties to be elected, so by forming alliances they're at least growing their chances. Still, I wouldn't hold my breath for their success. The decision to kick out Väyrynen may have well sealed their fate.
Now, I've talked about Väyrynen in the past, especially during last years presidential election and later I talked about his exploits in another post. But again in summary: for the longest time, Väyrynen was a member of the Center Party. He was the party's leader between 1980 and 1990 and until last year was considered the party's honorary chairman. Suddenly in 2016, he announced plans to create his own political party, claiming that the Center Party had gone too far from its roots. The new party called the Citizen's Party made party registry later that year and Väyrynen naturally served as its first leader, though he abandoned the post soon after. Despite forming his own party he refused to resign his membership in the Center Party causing some drama, which I explained in the posts linked above. In 2018 he ran for president as an independent, ultimately falling short for the fourth time. After the election he suddenly announced plans to challenge Prime Minister Juha Sipilä for the Center Party's leadership (again, he hadn't resigned from the party) in an effort to "save" the party. Soon after this announcement he was suddenly fired by the Citizen's Party, with the official reason being the misuse of party funds during his presidential run. This is where we left off since the last time we spoke about the man.
After being fired from the Citizen's Party Väyrynen challenged the decision in court and actually won. Although I originally wondered how he could possibly argue this case, the reason is actually pretty simple. According to Finnish law you generally can't just fire somebody, you have to give them a warning that they are in danger of being fired, which I think is fair because it gives the person a chance to change their attitude. In the case of Väyrynen the Citizen's Party didn't do this. They simply called a board meeting in which they decided to fire Väyrynen. And that's the other thing: the agenda of a board meeting has to be announced in advance to the people taking part and apparently, that wasn't done either.
Now since this whole thing went through, it briefly looked like Väyrynen might just return to the Center Party. After all, he was running for party leader and due to the infighting within the Citizen's Party caused by his decision it seemed the party simply couldn't take off. Then suddenly, he abandoned his bid for party leader, resigned from his membership in both the Center and Citizen's parties and announced the formation of yet another party called the Seven Star Movement. This new movement was officially registered as a political party in late 2018 and let's just say it's launch hasn't gone too well.
The Seven Star Movement announced its first candidates for the election in early January. One of the candidates was a man named Börje Börgelson, who soon turned out to be non existent. Yes, a party led by a political veteran of nearly 50 years was running a candidate that didn't exist. Not only that but the last name Börgelson is non existent as well, as in nobody in Finland has that name. How did this happen? Party representatives have claimed they contacted the man through email and talked to him by phone. Problem is that when the party allowed reporters to see the information Mr. Börgelson had sent them when volunteered to be a candidate, turned out he hadn't given them his phone number because he "didn't remember it" and asked to be contacted through email. So, if the party doesn't have his phone number, how could they have contacted him by phone? This doesn't really add up. It seems the Seven Star Movement is simply so desperate to get people to run for them that they haven't bothered to properly check who's running.
Then there's what really inspired to write post: on the 11th of February it came out that Väyrynen is working together with a man named Ilja Janitskin. Janitskin is most well known as the founder of MV-lehti, an alternative media site which is mostly known for spreading conspiracy theories, fake news and racism, blatantly copying news from other sources, attacking people who criticize it and generally anything negative. In October 2018 Janitskin was convicted from various crimes connected to the sites operations, including multiple cases of aggravated defamation, revealing restricted information, organizing illegal fundraisers, copyright infringement and incitement against an ethnic group, just to name the one's I can translate to English in a somewhat concise way. So needless to say the man is considered bit of a controversial figure. Janitskin planning to run for parliament as a candidate for the independent Reformi-movement, which is full of these right-wing populists who tend to attact against anybody who doesn't agree with them.
So, why are these two working together? Well the obvious idea would be to form an alliance. When questioned about working with Janitskin, Väyrynen stated that the two have similar goals in mind so in that sense an alliance would make sense. After all, Finland elects politicians under proportional representation. However, Väyrynen already struck down this idea. Instead the plan seems to be working together with image building. You see, Väyrynen has been pissed at the media for not giving enough exposure to his new party (even though he's been in the news all the time because of his exploits, but whatever), meanwhile Janitskin is the founder of an "alternative media" site. So apparently, Väyrynen is planning to use MV-lehti to get past the mainstream media to get exposure, while working together with a veteran politician like Väyrynen would give Janitskin a chance to fix his questionable reputation. This is really the only way any of this makes sense to me.
Now, I guess we have to talk about the Citizen's Party briefly as well. How have they been doing since Väyrynen left? Well, they're getting ready for the election, but I can't help feeling bit of desperation from their side as well. They have actually announced two alliances with two different parties: in one constituency they are teaming up with Blue Reform, which I covered in my previous post. The more surprising one is an alliance with Suomen Kansa Ensin (SKE), which translates to Finnish people first. This is what really gives out the feeling of desperation in my opinion. Now, I'll probably cover SKE in a separate post, because it honestly deserves it. The party was only registered in December last year, but despite that it's already split into two factions which are fighting over control,. Not only that the party originally split off from an earlier group due to infighting. There's so much drama here I simply can't make it justice in this post, so I'll leave it for the future.
After last years presidential election I made a post speculating about the future based on the election result. In that I predicted that Väyrynen could lead the Citizen's Party into a surprise victory in the future. If you remember, it was pretty clear before the election that president Sauli Niinistö would win re-election, which he did with 62.8% of the vote. Väyrynen finished fourth with 6.2% of the vote, which is fairly good considering the nature and the ultimate outcome of the election. More importantly, he beat the Center Party candidate Matti Vanhanen. So based on the results, I thought he could pull a major upset in next parliamentary elections. After all, the man seemed to have support, even within the Center Party, so he could theoretically pull votes from there. In fact, Citizen's Party's current leadership is formed mostly by former Center Party members, so he already had done that. But now...
Well, recenty a city council member representing the Center Party publicly announced support for Väyrynen and that they would run for the Seven Star Movement in this years election. So he still seems to hold support within his former party. So in short, I still think he could pull something off. That being said, the man seems delusional. In the past he has claimed to believe that the party could get one MP elected from every constituency. Finland is divided into 13 constituencies with on of them being the autonomous region of Åland with it's own political system so it doesn't count here, meaning the party would have to win 12 seats in the election. This is something I simply don't see happening. Even though Väyrynen clearly still has support, he has done so much damage to his political legacy in recent years that I can't think of him as a major political player anymore. But ultimately, with his name recognition, I still think he's the most likely candidate to pull off a surprise victory.
The Citizen's Party on the other hand... Well, they're trying to do the right thing. The Finnish political system makes it hard for new parties to be elected, so by forming alliances they're at least growing their chances. Still, I wouldn't hold my breath for their success. The decision to kick out Väyrynen may have well sealed their fate.
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