Suvi-Anne Siimes bids farewell to evil party politics

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By Maija Alftan
     
      Suvi-Anne Siimes, 43, who left the leadership of the Left Alliance amidst much controversy a year ago, airs her feelings in her new book, Politiikan julkisivu ("The Facade of Politics").
      Siimes, who joined the party with great expectations, and who made an important career out of it, is leaving an arena which she has experienced as being very dark, to join the pharmaceutical industry advocacy organisation Pharma Industry Finland as its managing director from March 1st.
      Before that, she squared her accounts with her former party in a very brisk manner. Siimes has publicly chastised MP Jaakko Laakso, the apparent embodiment of the evil of political hacks.
      When visiting Belarus once with the Foreign Affairs Committee of Parliament, she shuddered when a man who professed admiration for Stalin and Kekkonen kissed her on the hand. Although the kiss was "fairly elegant", she felt disgusted: "The man psychologically resembled Jaakko Laakso way too much."
      Fortunately, committee secretary Jukka Salovaara was carrying hand disinfectant in his briefcase.
     
In the 1980s Siimes studied economics, and had no intention of joining any political parties.
      "At that time, politics was considered stale - just a game of promoting one's own self-interest", she says in the Russian restaurant where we meet for the interview on a chilly evening.
      Siimes glances at the menu and decides that she probably "has to" order the wild mushroom soup of the Valamo Monastery. As a leftist politician, Siimes is somewhat strange: she publicly professes the Orthodox religion, after having joined the church at the age of 15.
      Siimes says that she had always been a leftist. She was interested in Hispanic culture, and discovered liberation theology through the works of Pablo Neruda.
      "There are still leftist priests and nuns in Latin America, who have applied the tenets of Christianity by working actively on behalf of the poor", she explains.
      "My interest in left-wing politics is extremely practical. I am interested in what people can do on behalf of the poor."
     
When the Left Alliance was established in 1990, Siimes moved to the countryside. She went into municipal politics in the community of Pohja, west of Helsinki, and got a flying start to her career. In a few years she became the chairwoman of her party.
      "Then they were searching for a new way to operate in politics, which had been completely forgotten in both the Left Alliance itself as well as in the debate concerning it", Siimes says while eating her soup.
      "Now we have forgotten what the situation was like in the early 1990s: the Berlin wall had come down, and the Soviet Union broke up. Everyone thought that this was going to be a new world, a new alliance of the left, and that the communist tradition would collapse. I joined in with a very serious mind."
      Siimes feels that it is quite ironic that the Left Alliance made it through being in the government, joining the European Union and Economic and Monetary Union, but could not survive being in opposition.
      "Naturally, it can be seen as my fault, but not completely. It was unsettling to see that people did not really support the things for which we were in the government: deepening integration and the common foreign and security policy of the EU."
     
Finally Siimes found that activity in the party felt "repetitive, mindless and useless". Already in 2004, at a meeting of the party's delegate council, Siimes experienced "immense fatigue, a deep moral hangover".
      She says that while the party's facade is replete with beautiful and sublime talk about values and profound ideology, all that she found behind it was "manoeuvring, downright evil, and certainly malevolence".
      This is not the party that Siimes had joined, and this is the party that she started to want to escape from, in order to save herself.
     
Siimes admits that she is not quite sure of what the real motives of Jaakko Laakso are. She feels that she had seen him as a "harmless relic" for far too long.
      "I was shocked to notice that nothing was sacred to him. It was almost worse to notice that many said casually that this is what he was doing in the 1970s as well."
      When party members sang the Internationale in Tallinn Harbour, Estonian waiters listened to it quite calmly. Siimes was appalled. The Soviet Union occupied Estonia in 1940, and at that time, the song was their national anthem.
      "I understood that I had a different context. I understood that the Left Alliance is a nostalgia movement."
     
Siimes feels that the problem of the Left Alliance is not that those involved in the hard-line minority faction of the Communist Party were allowed in. "The crucial thing is that the culture of the Communist Party was smuggled into it. Even the members of the majority faction were communists, and that was a problem from the point of view of democracy."
      It was also a different age. Siimes cautiously adds: "Changes have taken place in Russia from 2001 since Vladimir Putin consolidated his power. It has had an impact on politics in Finland, and at least on the activities of the Left Alliance. I cannot say much else about that."
      Siimes received a flood of criticism from political columnists when she announced that she supports a Social Democratic woman candidate in the Parliamentary elections. This makes her angry: "I have full citizens' rights, even though I have left the party... My loyalty to the Left Alliance ended the moment that it became apparent that they have no intention of cleaning their stall, so to speak. It is shocking to demand that I should support a party that I have left because of its lack of morals."
      And even though Siimes admits to having failed as a party leader, she has not lost her faith in politics. "I absolutely still believe that good is possible, and that people can change things. For this naive reason I have encouraged some women in these elections."
     
Last autumn Siimes published a book of her thoughts called Kilvoitus ("Striving", or "Struggle"), and in the previous year, a collection of correspondence with the Orthodox nun Kristodul.
      She describes her faith as everyday Christianity. "It matters what a person does. How does the Psalm go? 'Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it'."
      "Now when I look at Jaakko Laakso and a few others from a bit of a distance, I can even manage to think some good thoughts about them. When I was closer, I was not able to do that. I could not manage to struggle so far. That's the kind of Orthodox person that I am."
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 16.2.2007

More on this subject:
 The Red Lady reveals the reasons for her departure, and the culprits

Previously in HS International Edition:
  Former Left Alliance leader publishes account of estrangement from party (15.2.2007)
  Former Left Alliance leader to be General Director of Pharma Industry Finland (8.6.2006)
  Suvi-Anne Siimes tenders resignation over split in Left Alliance (2.3.2006)
  Left Alliance leader Suvi-Anne Siimes announces resignation (1.3.2006)

MAIJA ALFTAN / Helsingin Sanomat
maija.alftan@hs.fi