Questions for the left

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By Unto Hämäläinen
     
      The biography of singer Reijo Frank, Työväen laulaja (“Workers’ Singer”) was published on Tuesday in a time-honoured location, the Juttutupa bar in the Helsinki Työväentalo (Workers’ Hall). The event was nostalgic, and brought to mind the 1960s and 1970s when Frank (b. 1931) was a regular performer at major events of the political left and the labour union movement.
      The biography, edited by Pentti Peltoniemi, reveals that the singer has succeeded in something that leftist politicians have not managed to do: he has genuinely united the political left. Frank’s background and charismatic personality has undoubtedly had an impact on this.
     
Frank was a “real” worker who worked at ordinary jobs for more than 40 years. He did not leave his job at a workshop even in the heyday of his popularity, when there were hundreds of events in his gig calendar. His performances took place in the evenings and during weekends.
      But there was much behind the undivided popularity enjoyed by the singer of workers’ songs that politicians might learn from as well. Frank was able to make people stop and listen. Whether or not one likes traditional workers’ music, or the voice of Reijo Frank, his performances contain the right mix of information and emotion. One is compelled to listen, if one does not want to be stone deaf.
      Not many of the present leaders of the Social Democratic Party, the Left Alliance, or the labour union movement are able to make people stop as Frank can. Power of expression, an ability to speak to people, is nevertheless an important characteristic in a movement that lives or dies on the basis of the active involvement and support of ordinary people.
      One is forced to ask where the charismatic leaders of the left are.
     
The weakness of the reserves of the left came out this week, when TNS Gallup released a new opinion poll. It did not make big headlines, because it contained nothing new.
      According to the poll, the SDP and Left Alliance together had the support of slightly less than 30 per cent of the population. This amount of support for opposition parties is not much, considering how tough the times are in Finland right now.
      The Parliamentary term is exactly at its halfway point, and it has been two years since the Parliamentary elections. Support for the Left Alliance is exactly what it was in the last elections, where both parties of the left suffered serious setbacks, resulting in their being left in the opposition.
     
The poor success of the left could be explained easily if the centre-right government had succeeded well. However, this explanation does not seem credible - at least not in the view of the left.
      If the weakness of the left is not the result of the skill of the right, then could it be the result of ineptness on the part of the left itself?
      The government has been the target of sharp criticism from the left - most recently in the dispute over pensions. Citizens nod and agree that there is much sense in the criticism, but the agreement does not seem to translate into a growth in support. What is the reason why the alternative offered by the political left is not seen as acceptable, even as a channel of protest in opinion polls?
     
The fourth question is even more difficult than the previous three, because the answer is completely in the hands of the parties of the left themselves.
      The SDP and the Left Alliance have been in opposition for two years, and have engaged in opposition politics that are almost identical in content. Only in a few cases have their views differed enough for an outside observer to recognise the existence of two different parties.
      Still, there has been no decent movement for cooperation between the parties of the left. It has remained in the same zero-point where it was left after Suvi-Anne Siimes resigned as chairwoman of the Left Alliance on March 1st, 2006 - the same day that Tarja Halonen began her second term as President. The golden moment for unification of the left was during Halonen’s presidential campaign. That moment came and went.
     
There were a significant number of Left Alliance leaders who would have been ready to move in with the Social Democrats, and there was a great desire in the Social Democratic Party to accept them. The election of Eero Heinäluoma to the SDP leadership in the summer of 2005 was supposed to be the start of the project aimed at uniting most of the left with the SDP before the 2007 Parliamentary elections, or immediately thereafter.
      Uniting the political left could have been the big move of the decade in Finnish politics. It would probably have made the SDP the largest party in Finland, and would have given Eero Heinäluoma the post of Prime Minister in the government negotiations after the most recent elections. The whole political setup would be quite different now.
     
The unification project came to nothing, and to top it all off, it turned against itself.
      It got the other side on the move.
      The budding cooperation of the left was a reason why the leaders of the Centre Party and the National Coalition Party were able to agree on cooperation in the last presidential elections.
      In earlier presidential elections, the centre-right parties had not been up to doing that. This last time they did manage it, even though the National Coalition Party was in opposition at the moment when the agreement was made.
      “This [cooperation] took place in the previous elections, and I would say that it was largely my doing. The first round of the elections was a primary election of sorts, and in the second, forces were joined”, said the Prime Minister, Centre Party leader Matti Vanhanen, in a recent interview with the newspaper Kaleva.
      Secretaries of State Ilkka Oksala (Nat. Coalition Party) and Timo Reina (Centre) evaluated the significance of the agreement in the Presidential elections in Helsingin Sanomat on March 22nd.
      “The agreement, and the fact that it held perfectly, brought completely new preconditions for government cooperation. When the Centre and the National Coalition Party got a parliamentary majority for the first time in the 2007 elections, this possibility was put into effect.”
      So the political move of the decade took place on the right.
     
It would be quite strange if the parties of the left did not hold thoroughgoing discussions before the next parliamentary elections on cooperation between the SDP and the Left Alliance. Two years in opposition is a long time to just sit and wait for elections and getting into power.
      But let us return to Reijo Frank. People listen to him across party lines because he knows how to make people stop and listen.
      Could the political left learn something from the singer?
      For instance the fact that a loud voice is not the same thing as a good voice.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 28.3.2009


Links:
  Reijo Frank performing a satirical song in 1981 (Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) archive website)

UNTO HÄMÄLÄINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
unto.hamalainen@hs.fi