Centre Party lashes out at National Coalition Party

Jarmo Korhonen

Antti Rantakangas

Jyrki Katainen

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The Centre Party launched a severe attack against its main government partner, the conservative National Coalition Party on Sunday, especially targeting the party’s Chairman, Minister of Finance Jyrki Katainen.
      Centre Party Secretary Jarmo Korhonen has told Helsingin Sanomat that the atmosphere in the government had grown increasingly tense.
     
“The lines in the government need to be shot straight, and we cannot afford any chicanery”, Korhonen said.
     One stunt that he mentions is the decision to lift the burden of payments of the Social Insurance Institution from companies.
      He says that a series of mistakes has been made at a time when the country is going through the most difficult time in its history. “The economy of Finland is collapsing.”
     “Katainen needs to re-examine his policy line. That needs to be said, but we have also made mistakes”.
     
Korhonen said that the Finnish people and the Centre Party are not managing to keep up with Katainen.
     He said that the Centre will soon have waited in vain for two months for the filling of the EUR one billion gap left by the lifting of the Social Insurance Institution contribution.
     “Lifting the payment was a continuity to other poor preparations. We have a gap of a billion euros, and there is no knowledge of how that is to be filled.”
     As Korhonen sees it, consensus is needed now on all levels, also between the National Coalition Party and the Centre. “The atmosphere needs to be improved fast.”
     
Also on the offensive is Centre Party deputy chairman Antti Rantakangas, who said that Finns need to know whose interests the National Coalition Party is promoting in government.
     “On the basis of what has come out in public, it has become clear that the National Coalition Party and the Confederation of Finnish Industry (EK) are cooperating closely as they promote the interests of big companies at the expense of wage earners, and those living on basic social security”, Rantakangas said.
     “The disloyal actions of the National Coalition Party toward its government partners in the publication of the Social Insurance Institution contribution and the pension negotiations shows that it places the interests of heavy industry before the rules of government cooperation and responsible economic policy”, he noted.
     
The message was a fairly strong one. Korhonen said that the statement by Rantakangas is in line with current thinking in the Centre Party.
     “It describes the feelings very well. These come by every day, but the message is naturally Rantakangas’s own”, Korhonen said.
     
Rantakangas feels that the dispute over pensions has revealed linkages between parties and interest groups. “The Social Democratic Party has gone back to being a remote outpost of the labour union movement, and the National Coalition Party seems to have an equivalent role with respect to EK.”
     He feels that the Centre Party now has to more clearly bear responsibility on its own for all of Finland, for all Finns, and for the coming generations.
     “For those whose cause does not seem to be the concern of labour market organisations, or the political forces that conform to them."


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Centre MPs rally around Prime Minister after pension decision (12.3.2009)

Helsingin Sanomat