Former Left Alliance leader publishes account of estrangement from party

Suvi-Anne Siimes

print this

Suvi-Anne Siimes, who left her post as chairwoman of the Left Alliance party a year ago, airs her feelings toward her former party in a new book published on Thursday.
      In her book, Politiikan julkisivu ("The Facade of Politics") Siimes sees the Left Alliance like an old Soviet Moskvich car, which has had a new body installedto give it a dash of West European elegance. However, inside it still has the old engine and steering mechanism.
     
A different interpretation is also possible - that the former chairwoman is doing a final favour for her party, telling it to open its eyes, to see reality, and to stop sweeping problems under the carpet.
      Siimes might have been a useful figure for her party in this year's elections as well, but she has clearly had enough of what she has seen as back-stabbing from other party members - especially other Left Alliance MPs.
      The book is also her farewell to politics. In March Siimes begins a new job at the head of an organisation promoting the interests of the pharmaceutical industry.
     
Suvi-Anne Siimes, who was politically somewhat inexperienced at the time, was chosen as the chairwoman of the Left Alliance in 1998. In hindsight, she feels that people like her were needed in the somewhat stagnated party to give it a fresh image on today's political market. Now she feels that there never was much genuine desire to turn the Left Alliance into a leftist party suited for the present day.
     
Siimes was easily re-elected to the party leadership in 2001. She set as a condition of continuing in the job that the party should continue to oppose the construction of a fifth nuclear reactor. She was told that this was unacceptable behaviour on the part of a party leader.
      The real problems emerged a few years later, when the Left Alliance had to take a stand on EU combat forces, the EU constitution, and Finland's relationship with NATO. Siimes and the party's Parliamentary group lived in completely different time-frames.
      Siimes noticed how Jaakko Laakso, a former member of the hard-line minority faction of the Communist Party, was constantly exerting an influence on the Parliamentary group. At the same time, the party put up impediments to entering the next government coalition.
     
At one point Siimes came close to leaving the party group and applying for "political asylum" with the Social Democrats.
      Siimes made it clear to party insiders that she would not run in the 2007 elections if Laakso also seeks re-election. The threat was first seen as a bluff. When it was taken more seriously, Siimes was offered an agreement in the early winter of 2006 that Laakso would be accepted as a candidate, but that he would be expelled from the party group if he were to cross the group in any way.
     
"Apparently there was no limit to how stupid and power-hungry I was seen to be", Siimes writes, commenting on the offer.
      After many bitter turns, Siimes finally noticed that she had virtually no respect left toward the Left Alliance and its predecessors. Pointless and ridiculous scheming was taking place behind closed doors in a party that was constantly losing support.
     
Siimes feels that the "shadow of Moscow" continues to darken the Left Alliance. She feels that the party should not have accepted former members of the hard-line faction, or other communists "who did not have the desire or courage to change their thinking or their methods of action".
      Siimes sensed that there were many such people even among the moderate majority faction.
      On March 1st, 2006 Siimes announced that she would leave the post of party leader. After that, she found yet another reason to be disappointed with her comrades.
      "I was surprised that debate on the internal conflicts in the party, and of the largely very unhealthy methods of activity, was swept so quickly under the carpet."


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Left Alliance leader Suvi-Anne Siimes announces resignation (1.3.2006)
  Left Alliance leader says party must lose either reformers or conservatives (28.2.2006)

Helsingin Sanomat