Foreign Minister Tuomioja demands greater SDP self-criticism

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Finland's Social Democrats continue their grieving after a disastrous election result. Foreign Minster Erkki Tuomioja (SDP) believes the election defeat post-mortem at Tuesday's party leadership meeting remained regrettably superficial.
     
"Sure, the conversation produced genuine observations concerning mistakes that were made in advertising, for instance, but no more profound self-criticism was exhibited, least of all concerning the way the party has been run", Tuomioja charges in his online blog.
      Tuomioja reveals that in the feedback he has received from citizens, the party has been criticised for a measure of "cognitive dissonance" - discrepancies between what is said and what is done.
      "In this case the way out is either to give up the Social Democratic election programme and to embrace the National Coalition Party's taxation policy, or to admit that some of the decisions, such as the removal of tax on wealth, should not have been accepted."
     
In Tuomioja's view, in the past ten years or so the SDP has not once really paused to reflect on the state of the society and to consider the party's objectives in it. The party leadership has faced the obvious election catastrophe "remarkably calmly", the Foreign Minister writes.
      Similar discussions also took place on the opinion pages of the SDP organ Uutispäivä Demari on Wednesday. Among other things, the opinions stated that the party got what it deserved, when even the conservative National Coalition Party thanked the SDP for boosting their election campaign in such a commendable fashion.
      In a couple of postings it was estimated that the ill-advised advertising campaign by the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK) further contributed to the SDP election fiasco, which saw the party lose eight seats and slip to third place - and quite possibly into opposition.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  SDP sets up committee to analyse causes of election defeat (21.3.2007)

Links:
  Erkki Tuomioja - English pages on personal website

Helsingin Sanomat