Soini wants background checks on True Finns’ Parliamentary candidates

Party holds seminar, hoping to maintain winning streak - Halla-aho to run for Parliament

Timo Soini

Jussi Halla-aho

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The opposition True Finns party plans to enact exceptional measures in next year’s Parliamentary elections to make sure that all of the party’s candidates have nothing to hide.
      In addition to the normal commitments, the candidates are expected to openly disclose their backgrounds and their goals.
      “I have said this in every election, and I will say it again: if you have unpleasant things from your point of view, that you do not want to read in Helsingin Sanomat, don’t become a candidate. All backgrounds will be dug up, and that is good”, said the party’s chairman, MEP Timo Soini at a training seminar on Saturday in Helsinki.
     
Soini predicted that the party would win eight per cent of the vote in next year’s election.
      With a year to go before the elections, the party felt that a seminar was needed in light of the gains that the party made in the most recent municipal elections and the elections for the European Parliament.
      Party Secretary Ossi Sandvik briefed the 300 participants about the demographics of the party’s current supporters.
     
The typical True Finns voter is a middle-aged man who is most likely to live outside larger cities. However, the party is making inroads in urban areas as well.
      A quarter of the party’s members, and a third of its voters are women. Somewhat unexpected was the finding that a third of the party’s supporters earn more than EUR 50,000 a year.
     Sandvik calculates that the party has received about 31,000 new voters from those who have previously tended to stay at home on election day. In addition, he said that the True Finns have received 23,000 defectors from the Centre Party, 19,000 from the Social Democrats, 15,000 from the National Coalition Party, and 10,000 from the Left Alliance.
     
Helsinki City Council member Jussi Halla-aho, who has established a reputation based on his outspoken views critical of immigration, says that he will run for Parliament next year as an independent candidate on the True Finns ticket.
      Party leader Timo Soini would not accept Halla-aho as a candidate in last year’s elections for the European Parliament. Now Soini says that his candidacy in the elections for the national Parliamentary suits him.
     
Last week in his blog Halla-aho raised some eyebrows with an apparent suggestion that supporters could sidestep restrictions on campaign financing by making early donations.
      He wrote that once a fundraising permit is applied for and received, it will be possible to provide official campaign financing. “Before that, those wishing to contribute can certainly be in contact unofficially, and agree on matters ‘under the table’.” He indicated that “contrary to what is the case with development aid”, the money will reach the intended target.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Timo Soini drew support evenly from across the country (9.6.2009)
  True Finns´ Timo Soini tired of accusations of racism (19.2.2009)
  COMMENTARY: Halla-aho and some uncomfortable truths (3.12.2008)
  Soini defends True Finns party against accusations of xenophobia (9.10.2008)
  Court finds City Council member guilty of insulting religion (9.9.2009)

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