Left Alliance leader Suvi-Anne Siimes announces resignation

Despite support from a majority of party MPs, Siimes stepping back from politics

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Embattled Left Alliance chairwoman Suvi-Anne Siimes is stepping back from political life. In a newspaper interview on Wednesday, she said that she would not seek re-election to Parliament in next year's elections.
      YLE Radio News reported on Wednesday morning that Siimes would actually resign from the party leadership, which she has held since 1998.
      The party's deputy chairwoman Minna Sirniö said that Siimes had announced her intention to resign from the party leadership at a meeting of the party's executive committee on Wednesday.
     
The party executive is to hold a meeting on Thursday to discuss further action.
      Despite these latest dramatic developments, Siimes apparently continues to enjoy the support of a majority of the party's parliamentary group and the party executive. However, many Left Alliance supporters have denounced the recent actions of the leader.
      Ten of the members of the Left Alliance parliamentary group said when asked by Helsingin Sanomat on Tuesday, that they have confidence in Siimes.
      Four of the parliamentarians said that they are dissatisfied with her performance, and another four were wavering.
      Eleven of the members of the Left Alliance executive committee said that they support Siimes. One was still thinking about it, and two members were not reached.
     
Internal disputes within the Left Alliance have been making news recently. Emotions reached fever pitch in February during the debate over a bill on crisis management legislation, when the party's parliamentary group added a statement making their support for the legislation conditional to there being a United Nations mandate for any crisis management operations that Finland is involved in.
      Siimes, who disagreed with the provision, interpreted the MPS' move as a statement of opposition to Finnish participation in the EU's foreign and security policy. Siimes has sharply lashed out against the parliamentary group in her blog and in interviews.
      MP Anne Huotari said before the resignation announcement that she still has confidence in Siimes, but she hopes that she will not run unopposed for re-election as party leader at the party's congress in the summer of 2007. Huotari would have liked for there to have been a real contest at the previous party congress. "Then she was chosen unanimously, and the criticism began immediately on the same day. There is no lack of people who will take pot shots from the bush."
      Mikko Immonen has lost his confidence in Siimes. He says that he is disappointed, because it had been hoped that she would bring revitalise the party. She was expected to be a unifying, and not a dividing force, Immonen said. He is especially critical that Siimes has begun to publicly criticise her own party members.
      Outi Ojala uses meteorological metaphors to describe the atmosphere within the party. "There is no storm warning yet, but visibility and road conditions are poor."
     
In an interview with the Swedish-language newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet on Wednesday, Siimes said that she will probably not be a candidate in next year's elections to Parliament.
      "At this age there is no point in sacrificing oneself, and I do not plan to do so", Siimes says. Siimes, who is 42, has been an MP for Uusimaa since 1999 and was a minister in the coalition governments led by Paavo Lipponen (SDP) between 1998 and 2003.
      In the interview, Siimes describes her party's culture as "sick", and says that she had tried to change it.
      "However, my only tool is to get people to choose what they want. If I cannot implement an election campaign that I feel is credible, then I must go."
     
On Monday Siimes told the Finnish News Agency STT that the party must decide whether to keep its conservatives, or its reformers. "We cannot keep both".
      Left Alliance parliamentary group chairman Matti Korhonen insisted in the Wednesday edition of the Left Alliance newspaper Kansan Uutiset that there is no crisis to be seen among the party's rank-and-file.
      "The party is not in a crisis, if it is measured in the only correct way, which is, through the membership."
     
This story is still breaking, and we shall return to it in tomorrow's edition.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Left Alliance leader says party must lose either reformers or conservatives (28.2.2006)

Helsingin Sanomat