EDITORIAL: When contact with the party faithful falters

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The resounding defeats suffered at the polls by the governing Centre Party and the opposition Social Democrats in Sunday's municipal elections tell us at least one thing: the parties' connection with their members in the field has gone down like a mobile phone in a tunnel.
      The True Finns collected their support in the country precisely from the adherents of the SDP and the Centre.
      Taking the large forest industry towns and cities as an example, in Imatra the True Finns jumped straight in as the third-largest party on the council, while in Kotka they were fourth, and even in Kajaani they found themselves the fifth-largest party.
     
The political party field is no longer simply split along a left-right axis. Equally important today is the division that exists between those groups adhering to a liberal set of values and the social conservatives.
      The clearest examples of the liberal approach are the election winners of the Greens and the National Coalition Party, while on the more conservative side we have the Christian Democrats, the True Finns, and arguably also the Left Alliance.
     
Since the True Finns were unmistakable winners on Sunday, it is not possible to conclude from the outcome that social liberalism would have advanced in these elections.
      What one can say, nevertheless, is that the voters punished the Centre Party and the SDP, which teeter between the two poles.
      The SDP is still trying to find its line, while the Centrists seem to have lost theirs completely.
     
These elections may also go down in history as the first occasion - and quite possibly not the last - when the Greens surpassed the Left Alliance in popular support.
      The National Coalition Party and the Greens can look towards the future with a relative measure of confidence, since the age-structure of their supporters is the most healthy.
      The average age of Green councillors is the youngest in the country, while those from the Left Alliance are the oldest.
     
The Greens have always been a party of the young and the young middle-aged, while the facelift carried out by the National Coalition on its leadership and cabinet ministers has brought the party a whole heap of new and youngish voters.
      The draw of the National Coalition was also plain to see in that it was the only one of the large parties that actually managed to increase the number of candidates it recruited.
      At the same time, the rise in the education levels of the Finnish population will benefit these two parties in years to come, just as they will both reap dividends from the congregation of people in the cities.
     
The challenge thrown down by the True Finns cannot go unanswered within the Centre Party and the SDP.
      The Centre Party's direction looks clear.
      Party secretary Jarmo Korhonen directly blamed the government coalition for the fact that the Centre did as badly as they did. Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen also complained of the burden of being in government.
      And yet this same burden did not hold back the National Coalition Party, who stretched out to open up a lead of around 3%-points on their main cabinet partners in the Centre.
      This could be interpreted as meaning that the supporters of the NCP have been well enough pleased with the government's policies, while their Centre Party colleagues have not.
      The voters have apparently reached the conclusion that the Centre has failed in its normal bravura number of regional policy.
     
Chairman Matti Vanhanen has not been able to explain the actions of the government to his own people in the best possible way. Things have not been helped by Korhonen, who has gone around the provinces badmouthing the coalition government.
      What may happen from now on is that the Centre Party will begin to look more assiduously after number one. What is to be expected is a new rise in "interest politics" under the direction of Jarmo Korhonen, Mauri Pekkarinen, and others.
      Over time, the Centre's return to their old ways of looking to their core vote will only fill the coffers of the National Coalition Party, as the population moves inexorably into the cities.
     
However, political parties do not willingly think in the longer term, but their eyes are set on the next election, now two and a half years away.
      The Centre Party have an all-hands-on-deck alarm out to regain their lost support by the Parliamentary elections of March 2011.
      If they do not manage it, then we shall see a return to the old blue-red pairing of National Coalition and Social Democrats as an alternative in the government formation talks.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 28.10.2008
     


Previously in HS International Edition:
  PM Vanhanen hopes immigration issue will not become blunt instrument in Finnish politics (28.10.2008)

Helsingin Sanomat