Third Life

Paavo Lipponen, 67, worries about the greying of his Social Democratic Party, now in opposition

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By Jaakko Hautamäki
     
      A sweet bun is all but invisible under the large palms of Paavo Lipponen.
      He is sitting in the cafeteria of the new annex to Parliament and recalling his few failures in political life.
      As Speaker [a position he occupied from 2003 to 2007 after serving two four-year terms as Prime Minister], Lipponen would have wanted to name the new building after Miina Sillanpää (1866-1952, the first-ever female Finnish minister of state).
      “Yes, I should have pushed harder on that.”
      Now the edifice is rather boringly called Pikkuparliamentti (“Little Parliament”, after the restaurant of that name that was demolished to make way for it). So the daughter of farm labourers who educated herself and eventually became Minister of Social Affairs in the government of Väinö Tanner in the 1920s was deprived of the honour.
      It was a big disappointment for Lipponen, made worse by the fact that he regards Sillanpää and Tanner (Social Democrats both, like Lipponen) as two of the greatest Finns there have ever been.
     
Without missing a beat, Lipponen segues the conversation from Sillanpää and the '20s to the defensive battles of the Ccontinuation War in the 1940s.
      He’s been pondering them these past months.
      He also returns to the subject of the Continuation War in a book he has coming out in a couple of weeks, under the title Järki voittaa (“Common-sense Wins”).
      The volume - which examines Finnish culture and cultivation - at least has a title that matches its writer.
      Aside from the military historians, quite a few other commentators are probably going to read and hear that they have been all wrong before very long.
     
Then Lipponen makes another abrupt shift of gears and starts to elaborate on the architecture of the new annex building.
      The subject is close to his heart - Lipponen is the chairman of the board of governors of the French "Association Alvar Aalto en France".
     
This is just one among many honorary tasks that the retired former PM has to his name.
      In fact it is rather hard to get one’s head around the idea of Lipponen's being "retired" at all.
      He is writing his memoirs nineteen to the dozen, with the first instalment scheduled to appear in the bookstores sometime after the New Year.
      A sizeable chunk of his life also goes to being a roadie for his three children from his second marriage (to MP Päivi Lipponen, in 1998).
      The couple have two children of their own, and Päivi Lipponen brought a daughter, now in her teens, to the relationship from her first marriage.
     
“Yes, I’m overworked , but I thrive on promoting good things”, grins Lipponen.
      The list is enough to make one exhausted just reading it.
      There is a working party monitoring equal pay for equal work, the SDP’s history committee, and chairmanships in all manner of associations, in Finland and abroad.
      He is a member of the board of the Väinö Tanner Foundation, of the Banzai Club of football team Kuopio Palloseura [Lipponen spent his childhood and youth in the city], and he is chairing the High Level Advisory Group on Turkey of the Party of European Socialists (PES).
      Then there is the Amato Group, more officially the Action Committee for European Democracy (led by former Italian PM Giuliano Amato ), and the Club of Madrid’s Global Leadership for Climate Action task force.
     
This weekend he will be off again to Brussels for a high level meeting.
      Lipponen is also often abroad in his role as a paid expert consultant for energy firm Pohjolan Voima.
      In order to keep some control over the expanding roots and branches of his post-political life, Lipponen set up his own company last year, Cosmopolis Ltd.
     
Paavo Lipponen, who turned 67 last Wednesday, has clearly embarked on a very energetic “third life”.
      But if Lipponen is in overdrive, the same cannot be said for the party he once led.
      There is not much moving in the Social Democrat camp except for the nine candidates hauling a dead weight around the country on their chairmanship election campaign tour.
     
In 2005, after twelve years in charge, Lipponen handed over the SDP torch to Eero Heinäluoma.
      “I’ve got plenty back in return for my membership fees. I’ve received nearly everything from the party”, declared an emotional Lipponen in his farewell speech to the party congress.
      He said Heinäluoma would put the Social Democrats back in pole position as the largest party in the country.
      And then Lipponen began the process of withdrawing into the background.
      He gave space to Heinäluoma, who was allowed to run the party without public instructions from his predecessor.
     
But something was left undone by both men, for the Social Democrats have slithered deep into opposition territory.
      The last Parliamentary election saw them bleeding eight seats and slipping to be the third-largest party, behind the Centre Party and the National Coalition conservatives.
      Eero Heinäluoma announced in February that he would not seek to renew his mandate at the party's congress in June this year.
      Hence Lipponen is now in the mood to open up on the SDP’s current malaise.
      He believes the party has a serious problem in the age-structure of its members.
     
While he is talking, Lipponen does not notice that Erkki Tuomioja , one of the leading candidates for Heinäluoma’s job, is walking just behind him.
      Lipponen speaks in that soft growl of his about the choice of a new Chairman without once mentioning the word "Tuomioja". The address of the message is nevertheless clear.
      “When the party elects a new chairman, then certainly things should not get a step older. Now there are a number of people up for the job who are at the ideal age, between 30 and 50. I’m prepared to take a stand on this issue, because I’m really worried [about the way things are going].”
     
Lipponen opines that the new man or woman at the helm cannot be older than the 52-year-old Heinäluoma.
      This directly rules out Erkki Tuomioja (61), Kimmo Kiljunen (56), and 61-year-old Jouko Skinnari. Johannes Koskinen is 53 and much the same age as Heinäluoma, and so he would do in a pinch.
      Of these four, only Tuomioja is a real candidate - the others have support measured in single digits or less.
      Ideally suited to Lipponen’s age-window, on the other hand, are Miapetra Kumpula-Natri, Tarja Filatov, Jutta Urpilainen, and Pia Viitanen (all women), and Ilkka Kantola.
      “The average age of senior officials in the party is altogether too high. This really is not a sustainable way to go. And I’m responsible to some extent for what has come to pass in this respect.”
      “We really cannot afford to maintain this kind of age-structure at the top, when one takes a look across at the equivalent situation within the National Coalition Party, the Centre Party, or the Greens. We have to do something quickly, while we are in opposition. I don’t mean to come across as ageist, but the structure has to be changed."
     
According to Lipponen, “brothers at the very top” have to be made to understand the need for younger hands on deck.
      “Everyone can draw their own conclusions about the upcoming party election. I’m not going to do any picking and choosing, but now we do also have a chance to select a woman for the task.”
      And if instead the choice falls on someone older, then that is quite the wrong direction to be heading, he says.
      He looks ahead into the middle distance and sighs to himself.
      “That they would go and pick a chairman conspicuously older than the incumbent...”
     
The task of choosing a new leader for the party falls on the 350 delegates to the Party Congress, whose average age is just a tad under 50 years.
      The average age of the party membership is more than 60.
      The SDP certainly has a crying need for someone to come in and clean house, but the older members may not be overly interested in reforms.
      And as for young members, well, there aren’t many.
      It’s an awful situation.
      Lipponen is nonetheless optimistic about the mood of even the old guard. “They will see the need for reform from within.”
     
It will be interesting to say the least to see whether Lipponen’s appeal for youth has any impact.
      After eight years as PM, four more as Speaker, a dozen years in all as SDP leader, Lipponen is both liked and loathed among his own people.
      One might imagine he has had to clench his fists deep inside his pockets when the temptation has arisen over the past year or so to butt in on political topics du jour, aside even from those relating directly to the SDP.
      “I try to avoid the worst excesses of 'grumpy-old-man-syndrome”. I don’t want to see things exclusively as going to hell in a handbasket, but as a Social Democrat I’m naturally in opposition like the rest of them. I nevertheless try to understand the government’s foreign and EU policies. There has to be a degree of moderation, even in criticism.”
      Generally when he steps into the ring it causes a big kerfuffle, but he says that he has no wish to be constantly making comments in the poltical front-line.
     
“The politician in our family is Päivi Lipponen [an MP for Helsinki since 2007], but I don’t want to be completely tucked away on a pedestal above it all.”
      And when he is pushed and baited hard enough, he cannot resist answering back.
      And when he does, the Finnish language gets a full-on aerobics workout.
      This past week, Dr. Jukka Tarkka [political scientist, writer, columnist and former Member of Parliament] voiced the opinion that the performance of the Social Democrat quartet who oversaw Finland’s security policy for fifteen years - Lipponen, Tarja Halonen, Martti Ahtisaari, and Erkki Tuomioja - was among the most abject in the nation’s history. The people will suffer long into the future for the intellectual haplessness of this foursome, Tarkka commented in his column.
      We shall have to see how Lipponen responds to Tarkka’s opening salvo.
     
It is still such a short time since Lipponen was in power that he feels he is on the defensive about many issues.
      One of his pet topics is Finland and the EU.
      The SDP’s own members in the opposition declare that during Lipponen’s time at the helm Finland was in the hard core of the Union, but that we are now competing in the lower leagues. There is talk of the throwing away of the Lipponen legacy. Lipponen himself is not as critical.
      He preserves cordial relations with Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen by observing that the EU has changed through the recent rounds of enlargement.
      “Finland is not one of the big countries of the EU. One has to be a realist to that extent. Still, matters have not changed in so far as one has to keep tabs on the big players and be ready to take part in all tighter forms of cooperation. Under Vanhanen’s watch we have stayed close to the core.”
     
Lipponen nevertheless does demand a greater measure of activity on the EU front from today’s politicians.
      “Even if Finland is a small fry, it has to take on the big countries when necessary. You cannot just surrender everything to the Franco-German axis, even if that is important. We should be able to demand proper leadership and examples from the big countries of the Union.”
     
From the EU, the conversation swings neatly round to climate policy.
      Lipponen would be in favour of a more pronounced reduction of emissions, but would at the same time put a stop to some of the wackier talk about renewable energy sources.
      “We should exercise realism on the goals for increasing the share of renewables, particularly as at this stage we do not even have the necessary technology.”
      Lipponen’s views on energy are also bound up with his role as an adviser for Pohjolan Voima.
      A couple of days each month, he handles the international relations of the country’s second-biggest energy company, particularly towards France.
      The big shareholders of Pohjolan Voima are the Finnish forest industry giants UPM (42.0%) and Stora Enso (15.6% ), so in practice when he is in Brussels, Lipponen is also looking after the pulp and paper manufacturers’ interests in respect of energy and climate questions.
      “But all the same, I’m not a nuclear energy lobbyist.”
      There are many who would not swallow that claim.
     
Expert tasks are well suited to Lipponen, because he has himself never shied away from consulting experts.
      Even the welfare state is built on the input of experts, Lipponen notes.
      As Prime Minister he turned the experts’ proposals into hard-boiled politics.
      Before the 1995 parliamentary elections, Lipponen put forward a plan for FIM 20 billion in spending cuts. When he got into power he went a stage further and implemented cuts of 25 billion. The tough line divided opinions, but at least Lipponen had a programme.
      In recent years the value of economic knowhow in day-to-day politics has grown still more.
     
The way Lipponen sees it, the politics of today no longer rests on glaring opposites. The change began in his time - many described Lipponen’s own two governments as leaning strikingly to the right.
      He now calls on the Social Democrats to prepare a workable and realistic alternative under their new chairman, whoever it may be.
      “A logical economic policy line that is put before the people. I mean a proper line, and not just a litany of details. And not one that repeats aloud the message coming in from the field, in knee-jerk fashion.”
     
One of Lipponen’s favourite subjects down the years has been the media.
      Just about everyone has received a lashing in their time.
      One of those on the receiving end has been “the quality press” and “The building next to the Railway Station”.
      This last fits unerringly the description of Sanomatalo, the Helsingin Sanomat headquarters.
      “In the great broadsheet-whose-name-shall-not-be-mentioned, they look to be dropping the bar somewhat. They are heading in the direction of the blogosphere. I’ve come to expect a tighter line than we’ve seen lately. Isn’t going and looking for news supposed to be the most important task for the watchdogs of the state? What was the government getting up to in all quietness while everyone was running around chasing their tails and those SMS messages, eh?”
     
Lipponen also gives some instant feedback to a Tuesday night current affairs programme on TV that concentrated on the media’s problems over the Spanish coach crash.
      “I mean, that was undoubtedly the media’s finest hour this year in the contemplation of the navel department.”
      Lipponen charges that now there seems to be a doctrine doing the rounds, according to which the politicians want to manipulate the media, and so effectively they deserve what they get.
      "When you come to some event with the family and you give a short interview, the conclusion seems to be that now you’ve pushed open the door to the bedroom, too. The only thing that’s left is opening the mail and reading it.”
     
For all the carping, pensioner Lipponen seems to enjoy spending time with the media, especially on Saturdays.
      “Iltalehti and Aarno Laitinen’s regular column, then the Saturday interview on YLE1, then a swim [Lipponen was in his time a very proficient water polo player, at league and national level], then a nature documentary in the Avara Luonto series, a British whodunit, and after the evening news, the Finnish localisation of Have I Got News For You. There’s a perfect day.”
     
On weekdays the alarm goes off at 6 a.m.
      By 9:30 the children have been taken off to school and Lipponen settles down to a five-hour stint of writing.
      In the evenings it is back to looking after the kids.
      The first volume of Lipponen’s memoirs was supposed to be published by the end of the year, but it has been put back.
      The delay is partly due to the fact that he “hasn’t got a clue" what really happened at certain important junctures.
      Now he ought to know what really went on behind the scenes in the SDP when he first joined the party office in 1967.
      Lipponen is a careful man. He does not want his memoirs to be on sale for a euro in second-hand bookshops a month after they leave the presses.
      This has been the fate of a good many political memoir-writers.
     
Lipponen’s “Third Life” also has room for small dreams.
      One of them is a drive to his old school and hometown of Kuopio in a car with automatic transmission.
      Lipponen only learnt to drive after he retired, and got his licence last October, at the ripe old age of 66, as much as anything in order to be able to relieve his wife from family-taxi duties.
      The sensitive brakes and gas pedal on the new car in the Lipponen household have got him a bit rattled.
      “You know, I’m not altogether sure I dare make the trip.”
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 27.4.2008


Previously in HS International Edition:
  HS Gallup: Filatov and Tuomioja equally popular in race for SDP leadership (25.2.2008)

Links:
  Paavo Lipponen (Wikipedia)
  The Pikkuparlamentti Annex to Parliament, the location for this interview (Wikipedia)

JAAKKO HAUTAMÄKI / Helsingin Sanomat
jaakko.hautamaki@hs.fi