HS panel members do not see any reason to call for new elections

Demands that current MPs should make their election funding completely transparent

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By Jyrki Räikkä
     
      A total of 62 per cent of the respondents on a Helsingin Sanomat panel say that the ongoing row over election funding is no reason to dissolve Parliament and organise new elections before the current electoral term ends in the spring of 2011.
      On the other side, 31 per cent of the respondents on the panel took the view that we should resolve things once and for all and go back to the ballot-box with an early general election, as some members of the Parliamentary opposition have been urging.
     
The panel in question comprises over 100 influential people in the arts, sciences, and the media, and the group has been invited and put together by the culture desk of Helsingin Sanomat. The panel's comments are a regular feature of the Friday newspaper, and the paper uses their feedback to offer "wise answers to thorny questions".
      This time it was the hot-button issue of election financing - something that everyone in the country appears to have a view on.
     
The current parliament could best reform political culture by improving the laws on election campaign financing and political party funding, believes editor-in-chief Matti Kalliokoski.
      ”It will be well into next year before the new laws take effect. Dissolving the parliament would be just like moving from bad to worse”, he adds.
      ”Hardly anything would change, while further contributions would be required”, author Kaari Utrio throws in.
      The unravelling of the election funding web could take so long that when the entire picture is clear, the electoral term is going to be almost over, estimates philosophy researcher Tommi Uschanov.
     
The rules for election campaign contributions will have to be clarified before the next elections, notes Cultural Diversity Coordinator Umayya Abu-Hanna.
      ”It is natural and even desirable that various interested parties support financially various political ideologies, but the link must be transparent”, Abu-Hanna demands.
      ”The political apparatus is now needed to prevent further economic decline, not to carry out further election campaigns”, states professor Ullamaija Kivikuru.
     
Fanaticism in matters relating to the funding of election campaigns is about to lead to the point when ”those interested parties who have acted bona fide will find it more difficult to contribute to the social debate than before”, says management coach Jari Sarasvuo.
      ”The discrepancies are not so great as the level of sanctimonious piety and outrage from the media has led us to believe”, claims stand-up comedian Lotta Backlund.
      Dramatist Juha-Pekka Hotinen would be satisfied if some practices were defined more closely and if some people were replaced. All explicit legal offences should be tried in the courts, he says.
      ”But everything else is just new moralism, puritanism, and the quasi-critical stand of the media”, Hotinen claims, echoing Backlund's sentiments that the press generally has made quite a meal of out what has happened.
     
"The dissolution of parliament would be a mere media circus in the name of the people’s sense of justice”, musician A.W. Yrjänä argues in the same vein.
      ”The same people will go on making the decisions anyway, and those people never sit in the Parliament chamber”, he adds.
      Replacing the Prime Minister would be a better alternative than dissolving the entire Parliament, says film director Taru Mäkelä.
      ”How is it possible that a person who cannot tell dogshit from Shinola is allowed to be the head of the government?” Mäkelä adds, in an apparent reference to the PM's vagueness about where contributions had come from.
     
The number of those omissions, lies, and obvious illegalities that have come to light is so large that new elections are required, says director Heikki Hiilamo, who sides with the "Yes" camp.
      ”The present MPs are stealing the future from new politicians, if political responsibility is not taken seriously now”, Hiilamo notes.
      New elections have to be organised, the entire election funding has to become public, and a price limit is to be placed on election campaigns, demands non-fiction writer Jaakko Heinimäki.
      ”Patching things up is just not enough. What we need is a thoroughgoing renovation”, Heinimäki adds.
      The entire idea of campaign funding and advertising poses a threat to democracy, considers stage director Katariina Numminen.
      ”The richest candidates can afford to buy the largest volume of advertising space and the best competence, which could distort the results and eventually lead to the sort of election results they want”, Numminen claims.
     
Potential new elections should be organised so that all sponsors would be made public, suggests Annamari Vänskä, a researcher of visual culture.
      ”Athletes’ outfits are decorated with sponsors’ logos, and the company logos of supporters can also be found on the walls of art museums and galleries. Could the same practice not apply to politics?” Vänskä asks.
      Bans similar to those imposed on sports agents and athletes to stop the corruption could be also used in the field of politics, media researcher Juha Herkman feels.
      ”The bloated system we have now cannot be dismantled unless those individuals who have been pursuing the 'established practice' for years are summarily replaced, as their sense of reality and morality has become warped”, Herkman argues.
     
The people get the decision-makers they deserve, outlines Managing Director Irina Krohn.
      ”As long as most consumers of politics are just shopping for adventure and excitement, we will always have MPs who would be better suited to the Big Brother house than Parliament."
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 25.9.2009


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Vanhanen refuses to accept sole responsibility for election funding row (28.9.2009)
  Centre Party wants EUR 15,000 limit on individual campaign donations (28.9.2009)
  Election funding causes rumblings in government (25.9.2009)
  Election funding row sparks serious discussion of dissolution of Parliament (24.9.2009)

See also:
  The full transcript in Finnish of the panellists´ views on the election funding saga
  The HS Panel members and their answers to various questions (all in Finnish) can be found from the Helsingin Sanomat Culture Desk´s online pages

JYRKI RÄIKKÄ / Helsingin Sanomat
jyrki.raikka@hs.fi