Playing rough with Backman

PERSPECTIVE

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By Martta Nieminen
     
      Social Democratic Party Parliamentary group chairman Jouni Backman would do well to listen to the advice of his wife in the future, rather than to that of other politicians. Backman’s wife had warned her husband not to allow his name to be put forward in the game for the post of Director-General of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE).
      Backman has been the target of general ridicule in the past week. If Backman himself has been a player, he also seems to have been the target of a rough and sometimes downright cruel game.
      When Backman faced an extraordinary storm of invective, the leadership of the SDP seemed to have left him high and dry.
      I did not notice the party’s chairman Paavo Lipponen or party secretary Eero Heinäluoma coming out in defence of the chairman of the Social Democratic Parliamentary group.
     
Heinäluoma’s silence in the early part of the week is odd, especially considering that he is believed to have had a key role in getting Backman to agree to throw his hat into the YLE ring.
      According to numerous sources, many Social Democrats appealed to Backman before last weekend to seek the post of YLE Director-General.
     
Who were they, and what was Heinäluoma’s part in it? Backman himself has the best knowledge of this, and he is merely laughing at the rumour mill.
      This past week Backman insisted that the SDP’s group in the Administrative Council never put his name forward. The group includes, among others, Liisa Jaakonsaari and Kalevi Olin.
     
It has already occurred to someone that Heinäluoma may have wanted to get rid of Backman, lest he spoil Heinäluoma’s own ambitions to become his party’s chairman.
      Backman is known to have hinted that he might consider running for the party leadership.
      After the YLE mess it is likely that he will not become a candidate, opting instead to support someone else. Might that someone be Heinäluoma? Probably not.
     
For those who followed the confusion surrounding the whole affair it probably will have become clear that one of the scapegoats of the mess was the chairman of the YLE Administrative Council, Markku Laukkanen (Centre), who announced his resignation from the post on Friday.
      Laukkanen had assured Backman that the Centre Party’s group on the Administrative Council was behind the appointment of Backman. Laukkanen blundered when he failed to ask the opinions of Maria Kaisa Aula and Mirja Ryynänen.
      Aula feels that YLE needs a professional manager. Ryynänen, for her part, is reputed to hold a grudge against Backman; Ryynänen is very close to Anneli Jäätteenmäki (Centre), and Backman is believed to have put pressure on Jäätteenmäki to resign the position of Prime Minister in June of 2003.
     
Backman was promised the support of the National Coalition Party by Administrative Council member Jyri Häkämies.
      It seems that National Coalition Party chairman Jyrki Katainen - who is also a member of the YLE Administrative Council - and Parliamentary Group Chairman Ben Zyskowicz had also given some kind of guarantees to Backman. One apparent reason for this was that the SDP had supported the bid of National Coalition Party member, former Transport and Communications Minister Olli-Pekka Heinonen, to become director of television operations at YLE.
      However, one of the National Coalition Party’s figures on the YLE Administrative Council is Kimmo Sasi, who will not take orders even from the party’s chairman. Jouni Backman was not acceptable to Sasi.
      This was a golden opportunity for Sasi to raise his profile, both within the National Coalition Party and on his home turf in Tampere.
     
After Friday’s decision by the Administrative Council, the same old routine is set to continue at YLE under the leadership of Arne Wessberg (SDP). YLE will remain in the headlines for the near future.
      Decisions on the leadership positions in the Administrative Council will be decided upon in the autumn.
      A year from now there will be a new fight over the post of Director-General.
      Before that the SDP will get a new chairman, so at least that game will not confuse the issue any further.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 2.10.2004


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Wessberg gets one more year as YLE Director-General (4.10.2004)
  Wessberg expected to remain YLE Director-General for another year (1.10.2004)
  Backman withdraws from YLE leadership race (30.9.2004)
  Choice of top executive of Finnish Broadcasting Company postponed (29.9.2004)

MARTTA NIEMINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
martta.nieminen@hs.fi