COLUMN: Better the devil we know heading the government

For voters, it is not the same whose name is on the door of the PM's office

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By Unto Hämäläinen
     
      On Tuesday January 12th, the present coalition government chalked up its 1,000th day in office.
      Congratulations all round.
      In terms of the longevity stats, Matti Vanhanen's 2nd cabinet (and the 70th Finnish government since Independence in 1917) has already broken into the Top 10, and it has every chance of going on to capture the title of the longest-lived government in our short history, assuming it is able to continue its work through to the next general election, scheduled for March 2011.
     
All things being equal, the government would now have nearly 500 days more in office.
      It would also enjoy an exceptionally untroubled period in which to go about its work, since between now and the spring of 2011 there will be no other elections of any description to distract it.
      The government appears not to be riven with internal disputes or differences, and the opposition, headed by the Social Democrats, remains rather in the doldrums.
      A government sitting as prettily as this really ought by rights to be bursting with enthusiasm for the job in hand.
      Unfortunately, it seems nevertheless not to be, and it feels as if it is existing on a wing and a prayer - much as the rest of Finland is - living sparingly from one week to the next and as if counting the days to that long goodnight.
      Will the last to leave please turn out the lights...
     
Now if ever, we would need a very different grip on things.
      The government should get its ducks properly in a row and have the courage to put together a policy programme for its last fifteen months that has some juice to it.
      There is palpably a lot of work still to be done in this neck of the woods.
     
The very first thing that should be sorted is putting an end to the speculation around the figure of the Prime Minister.
      Matti Vanhanen should remain in the post until the end of the Parliamentary and government term, until the spring of 2011.
      Vanhanen has put his government together and has kept it standing. He knows the work of PM better than any other person currently in the political arena. Under his leadership, the cabinet would have the chance to make even some big and weighty decisions, if it sees fit to do so.
      Why would the government leave its most important resource unused?
     
Staying in power is not easy, but at the same time it is not a completely painless process to surrender power, either.
      Vanhanen is plagued by the same problems-of-letting-go that have always troubled long-serving prime ministers towards the end of their terms in office.
      As the chairman of the largest party in Parliament and the sitting Prime Minister, it is hard to find a suitable moment to step aside, since he must somehow knit together his own interests, those of the party, and those of the country.
     
Vanhanen is currently third in the list of the most long-serving occupants of the PM's seat, after Kalevi Sorsa (who had the job four times between 1972 and 1987, a total of nearly ten years in office) and Paavo Lipponen (two full terms between 1995 and 2003).
      All three of them have managed to hold on to their post through the possible upheaval of a general election.
      Sorsa did it in 1983, Lipponen in 1999, and Vanhanen after the last elections in 2007.
     
Another common denominator for the three men is that they all harboured ambitions of a third term.
      In the case of Sorsa and Lipponen, these aspirations were dashed by defeat at the polls.
      Vanhanen, on the other hand, changed his plans and announced just before Christmas that he would not be seeking re-election to the chairmanship of the Centre Party at next summer's conference, and would thus not be in a position to try for a third term at the head of the government.
     
In his announcement, Vanhanen promised he would surrender the reins of the PM's job already in the summer, after the party members elected a successor as chairman.
      He nevertheless said that he would be willing to continue in office until the next general election in 2011 if the new Centre Party chairman wished and permitted this.
     
Vanhanen's shock declaration, even though it was carefully timed to go off just as the country's political elite were heading for the Christmas and New Year's holidays, immediately provoked feverish speculation.
      The long-serving PM was to be made to walk, and in his stead would come whomsoever the Centre Party chose as its next leader.
      Over the following three weeks, the major players within the Centre Party came to their senses: a survey in the party's main mouthpiece Suomenmaa indicated that a majority of the sitting Centre Party MPs were in favour of Vanhanen's soldiering on until the natural end of the parliamentary term, and a majority of the party council members took the same view in a straw poll arranged by a Finnish Broadcasting Company current affairs programme.
     
And so they should have. As with marital relationships, "better the devil you know", albeit that the use of the D-word might be questionable in this case.
      The only sensible grounds for Vanhanen's withdrawal would be that his health is not up to continuing in the PM's job.
      One hopes that this is not the case.
      The prime minister is the symbol of any government term. He (or she) should head the cabinet for as long as he enjoys the confidence of a majority of the Members of Parliament.
      It is sheer weakness that the leaders of the other three parties making up the present coalition have not put up their hands in support of Vanhanen's continued tenure.
      In a multi-party coalition government, the choice of PM cannot be simply the internal matter of one party only.
     
Since 1983, Finland - once a country notorious for "blink and you missed it" cabinets whose duration was measured in the months - has enjoyed stable governments that sit out the entire electoral term.
      The only exception to the rule was the very brief Anneli Jäätteenmäki administration in the summer of 2003, when Vanhanen came in to replace Jäätteenmäki and the government structure was otherwise largely unchanged.
      There is no cause to break on flimsy grounds a parliamentary tradition that has now lasted for seven electoral terms.
      According to the tradition, the government term ends in elections to Parliament, in which the outgoing administration faces up to the responsibilities of what it has done over the past four years, and the public gets its chance to weigh the results as it sees fit.
      It is not seemly that the Prime Minister should have been put to one side shortly before the elections and replaced by a temp chosen by one of the parties.
     
It is not the same for the voters if the name on the Prime Minister's door during the election is Vanhanen or if it is some other name, such as Lehtomäki*, Väyrynen, Pekkarinen, Korhonen, Kiviniemi, or Rantakangas.
      One of them could emerge as PM, if he or she succeeds in three endeavours: getting elected to the chair of the Centre Party, winning the next general election, and thereafter managing to put together a coalition that enjoys the support of a majority of the 200 MPs in Parliament.
     
According to the Constitution, the office of Prime Minister is an institution that is chosen by Parliament.
      The spirit of the Constitution is that one can only rise to hold the most influential position in the land if the people have first given a mandate to do so at the ballot-box.
      It is not the done thing to slide into the job in the middle of an electoral term.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 16.1.2010
     
     
The writer is a journalist with Helsingin Sanomat's monthly supplement Kuukausiliite and a former head of the newspaper's political desk.
     
     
*Note: At the time this article was written, the Centre Party leadership race was something of an enigma. A few possible candidates had announced they would not run, but nobody had actively declared they would be a contender. On Monday of this week, Paula Lehtomäki confounded the pundits, many of whom had believed she was the ante-post favourite to succeed Vanhanen, by announcing she was not interested in the job (see article below from 18.1.). On Tuesday, the veteran Centre Party politician Paavo Väyrynen followed up on earlier hints of a run for the leadership he held previously from 1980 to 1990, and formally declared his candidacy. Other names are expected to emerge in the coming days and weeks.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Other Centre Party MPs do not warm to Väyrynen´s views on party chairman´s age (7.1.2010)
  Veteran Centre Party politician Paavo Väyrynen hints at run for leadership (5.1.2010)
  Vanhanen: careful consideration behind decision to give up Centre Party leadership (31.12.2009)
  Vanhanen announces he will not stand for re-election to Centre Party leadership (23.12.2009)
  National Coalition Party: next Prime Minister has to continue on the same lines as present government (19.1.2010)
  Lehtomäki surprises Centre Party by bowing out of leadership race (18.1.2010)
  Battle for the Centre Party chair is warming up (8.1.2010)

See also:
  COMMENTARY: Christmas break gives Centre Party figures time to consider Party leadership issue (15.12.2009)

UNTO HÄMÄLÄINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
unto.hamalainen@hs.fi