Written by Otaku Apologist
My home country Finland just finished its parliamentary elections. Despite this being a porn blog, I wanted to comment on that. Because unlike some countries, where transitions of power are fiery spectacles rife with accusations of fraud, corruption and foreign involvement, Finland delivers a model example of how a developed democracy handles its elections.
Our last government, led by the social democrat Sanna Marin, was rather left-leaning. They had a coalition with the greens party, who campaigned on climate action, and the leftist alliance, plus a centrist rural party. This election, three of those four parties lost support. The two prominent rightwing parties gained seats.
Read more about the election results at Yle.fi/vaalit.
Sounds like a dramatic shift, right? Not in Finland. The two centrist-rightwing parties are missing a majority.
Because of how Finland’s system works, you always need at least three parties to have a government at all. Perussuomalaiset (eng. Finns party), our dedicated nationalist party, that’s somewhat anti-immigration (they support non-expansion of existing yearly quotas), will likely have to moderate their racism to attract the Swedish-Finns party into the coalition. Either that, or they have to negotiate with Sanna Marin and the social democrats.
In Finland’s system, you have to moderate your agenda. You have to, or you won’t have any power.
I went to vote in the local library. I showed my identification and got a plain paper ballot to write the number of my chosen candidate. The paper was folded, so the election officials could not see who I voted for.
Since I was voting remotely, I was given an envelope to put the ballot in. I sealed it myself. Then, that envelope was stuffed in a second envelope with my name and address on it. My identity was thus confirmed but also anonymized from the officials who would later do the counting.
You cannot electronically vote in Finland, because software is recognized as easy to tamper with. Everything is done by anonymous paper ballots. The counting takes one day, which is broadcasted on national television. The day is a national celebration of democacy, not just a competition.
You guys know why over-educating women crashes economies in the long run? Because they spend their fertile years buried in books. By the time they’re graduated, aged like 24-30, they’re just a few years from a lifetime of childlessness. Thus the real cost of educating women is fewer exceptional men, like Elon Musk, whose economic output sweeps the floor with a million university-graduated girls. Because men are genetically diverse, you have to roll the dice to produce geniuses.
There are more men in the upper and lower end of the IQ bellcurve, compared with girls. Thus you want to keep “rolling the dice”, make as many children as possible, to produce jackpots like Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla.
Sexist rant over, let’s get back to discussing our sexy political system!
Every Finnish government is a relatively weak coalition, parties often holding just 15-20% of the votes. We have 200 seats. A majority government needs 101 representatives, to have a majority that lets them pass new legislations. The biggest parties, with their 20% representation, get 40+ seats each, thus you always need three parties at least to form a government.
No ideology is overrepresented. Nobody can get exactly what they want, because the demographic representation of the country is adequately represented in the parliament. The more radical parties seldom get their foot in the door, but do get in the occasional vocal populist. In a few decades, that lone voice might turn into a larger movement, as happened with Perussuomalaiset (eng. Finns party). They started with one seat. After today’s election, they’re the second-biggest.
In many countries, such a big shift to the right could spell big changes. But not in the boring world of Finnish consensus politics, where everyone must negotiate and moderate, if they desire any power.
Our taxes might swing a few percentage points. Some regulations might be lifted to make entrepreneurship slightly easier. But dismantling the welfare state? Leaving the EU? Not even a full-on rightwing coalition has those balls. Because their base is not rightwing enough.
Thanks to freedom of speech and unfettered access to the internet, people are so exposed to a wide spectrum of ideas, the majority of voting-age people become very moderate. Our politics are not binary, not a winner’s game.
Often, the collaboration between parties of differing ideological leanings works okay. Not always, but that’s why every major party is centrist. Collaboration works better, when you are a moderate centrist.
Finland has problems, like every other country. Right now, we need tax breaks based on family size. That would probably solve the population decline. A slight cultural shift from over-valuing women’s higher education would be good too, but that’s still taboo to talk about. In a few decades, there will be enough data to convince people into some adjustments. We also need to reform our public healthcare and stop deficit spending.
When changes are slow, people grow their knowledge of the systemic problems and learn to work around them, thus few things pose a huge immediate issue requiring a reaction. There is time to resolve structural issues that manifest slowly.
I know you guys love freedom, I love freedom too. But come fucking on… You are not a serious country.
There have been no “fiery but peaceful protests” after these elections. No loud-mouthed populist figureheads staging semi-coups. No ransacked government buildings, no social media drama. Nobody got shot. We shifted slightly to the right, as the majority feel the economy has to improve before we focus on environmental issues again.
I sincerely hope that you readers will take the time to study Finland. Because so many of you seem lost these days, looking at the dumbfuck bullshit going on in your elections. Stop being unhinged partisans.
