Government party groups meet to discuss cooperation after election
Matti Vanhanen
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Eero Heinäluoma
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Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) has called a meeting of the chairs of the government parties - himself, Minister of Finance Eero Heinäluoma (SDP), and Environment Minister Jan-Erik Enestam (Swedish People’s Party) to discuss the future of cooperation within the government after Sunday’s Presidential election.
The meeting takes place today, Tuesday. In his blog, Vanhanen wrote on Monday that Heinäluoma had said on Sunday evening that there are expectations within the government to "sit down and see if there is anything to clarify in relation to the elections".
There has been some negative feeling in the Social Democratic Party about the cooperation in the second round of the Presidential elections between the Centre Party and the opposition National Coalition Party. Heinäluoma noted on a morning television programme on Monday that Ben Zyskowicz had already been making plans for a possible centre-right government.
In addition, he had noticed that the party secretaries of the Centre Party and the National Coalition Party had declared that after next year’s Parliamentary elections it will not be necessary to adhere to the principle that the largest party in Parliament should be the leading party in the government, if the second, and third-largest parties form a coalition.
Heinäluoma was also critical of the election campaigns of the Centre Party and National Coalition party, saying that the two deviated from issues related to the Presidential election.
Questions have been raised among the Social Democrats by comments made after the first round of the Presidential elections, in which Centre Party’s Parliamentary Group leader Timo Kalli called for a "clarification of government politics". Kalli said then that Vanhanen’s defeat in the first round was partly caused by politics within the government.
Vanhanen feels that it is clear that Presidential elections are not related to the workings of the government.
"Because of the electoral system, Presidential elections differ from other elections. Parties work together in the presidential elections each in their own way. The Centre Party has operated under the same logic in 1994, 2000, and 2006, and we do not have any commitments in government cooperation, under which government parties should support each other’s candidates", Vanhanen wrote in his blog.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 31.1.2006 - TODAY |
 Government party groups meet to discuss cooperation after election
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