Honoring the Nobel Peace Prize Winner: Martti Ahtisaari Square

Nobel peace prize 2008 winner Martti Ahtisaari now has a square named after him in front of the Finnish ministry for foreign affairs. That is the perfect location for a Finnish diplomat who got the Nobel prize for his important efforts to resolve international conflicts during more than three decades. He himself values most his role in the long process that led to the independence of Namibia.

It was in the Namibian capital Windhoek where I became certain that streets or squares shouldn’t be named after people who are still alive. I was then at the corner of Robert Mugabe Avenue and Fidel Castro Street. On the other hand I’m quite sure Martti Ahtisaari won’t do anything that would disgrace the square. He has been criticized but so would be anyone who is dealing with so difficult issues.

I wish they are going to add something clearly visible Ahtisaari-related to the square. This shadow was the only detail I was able to find. A thin shadow and an empty square really don’t symbolize a big man who has achieved so much.

Open Doors at the 200 Years Old Finnish Government

Prime minister Matti Vanhanen welcomed people to Government Palace.

Today all government ministries had open doors day in celebration of the 200 years old Finnish Government. It was a chance to visit places that everybody knows from the news but which are usually off-limits to regular people.

The Trust in The Finnish Parliament is Currently Very Thin

For many years Finland was the world’s least corrupt country in the widely referenced Transparency International’s reports but now our politicians are making sure the ranking is going to drop.

This year the Finnish media has revealed many election campaign funding scandals and it seems that a lot is still to come. Most recently some politicians had received funding from public money that they personally were able to control. Companies have also supported candidates in ways that are not very acceptable in a society where, in theory, transparency is valued. You can only wonder the motives of a company that supported very generously many politicians before it went bankrupt.

European Parliament Elections in Finland

Last week elections for the European parliament were held and in Finland the election day was Sunday.

Seven different parties got a hold on Finland’s 13 seats at the parliament. Leftwing parties lost compared to previous elections despite their opposition status and international financial crises. All three major parties lost one seat (conservatives now 3, central party 3, social democrats 2) and the biggest winners were populist True Finns (1 seat, earlier 0) and the Green League (2 seats, earlier 1). Only about 40% people voted which is quite sad.

Here’s how voting goes from voters point of view:

1. By mail you get a paper that tells the place where you must vote
2. On the election day you first register with the people on the right in the photo
3. You get a voting ticket from them once they have verified your identity and that your name is on their list
4. You go alone to the privacy of the booth that is partially visible on the left
5. You write the number of your candidate to the ticket (candidate numbers are listed in the booth, see my entry from local elections)
6. You walk to the man on the left who stamps the voting ticket
7. You put the voting ticket to the locked box to the left of the man
8. You’re done.

Alternatively you can vote before the actual election day during pre-voting that lasts about a week and ends a few days before the election day. During the pre-voting you have more choise where to vote.

If you want to know more about Finnish elections, ministry of justice has information in English.

Campaigning

Campaining for the local elections of last week at Arabia district.

Several parties have a good reason to be happy after the local elections

• Conservative National Coalition Party is now for the first time the biggest party in Finland
• Populist True Finns are the biggest winners of the elections although with their 5% share they are no match for the big three parties (each >20%).
• Ex-environmental movement Green League became the biggest party outside of the big three (and second biggest in Helsinki)

The remaining big three parties Centre party and Social Democrats lost a lot of seats. It is a bit strange situation as both the leading government party and the biggest opposition party were on the losing side.

EDIT: We have just learned that the electronic voting pilot in three municipalities was a total fiasco. A few percentage of the votes were not validated by the voters who thought that they had already given their vote. The system failed before the really controversial parts of it were even used!

Giving My Vote in the Local Elections

Candidates and their numbers are listed on the walls and all you need to do is write the number, get the paper stamped and put it inside a box.

Some municipalities are now piloting electronic voting. I’m totally against it as voting is the cornerstone of our society and it needs to be kept simple and understandable. How can you trust a voting system when they don’t even tell you how it works? In the good old system trust is based on thousands of people from different parties who are keeping an eye on each other. You can’t bribe them all. Even if there wouldn’t be any problems in the near future, the foundations of our society must be so strong that they can be trusted also during bad times.

Four years ago the turnout for the local elections (58.6%) was about the same as in the U.S presidential elections. This is considered alarmingly low in Finland. During the second round of the 2006 presidential elections 77.2% of the Finns voted. Today we have bad weather which means that a lot of people will stay at home.

Later it will be interesting to see today’s tv audience numbers: Are people more interested about local elections or tv show voting. Before midnight we will know who are eliminated from Idols and Big Brother and who are our local representatives for the next four years.

Local Elections on Sunday

I quickly grabbed some of the advertisements that have been in my mail.

Local elections are held tomorrow but somehow it seems like the politicians haven’t even started their campaigns yet. I guess we are doing very well in Helsinki and Finland as there really aren’t any major issus that people would be raving about. The global financial crisis hasn’t (yet) hit Finland in a big way and there would be little to do at local level anyway.

Nationwide there are three major parties social democrats (SDP), centre party (keskusta) and National Coalition party (kokoomus). They are getting closer and closer each other especially in their actions although their words may still reflect their traditional differences.

Centre party has little significance in big cities where Green League (vihreät) is much more popular. In addition there are still 3-4 other parties that are able to use some power and several smaller parties.

Some time ago they posted me a paper that says where I am supposed to vote. There is no need to register as a voter ever (atleast for native Finns). During the voting a piece of paper is given to me after they have checked who I am. I go to a booth and write the number of my candidate on the paper and then put the paper in a box.

It is also possible to vote before the actual elections in case you have something else to do during the election day.

I think the voting ends at 8pm and before I go to sleep we know the results. It’s the same for all kinds of elections held in Finland. Simple and efficient.