Finnish politics has been hit lately with a series of revelations of disturbing or unsavory behaviors exhibited by top politicians earlier in their lives; in some cases decades ago.
Last week, an unflattering photo of Antti Lindtman, a top Finnish social democrat who was set to succeed former Prime Minister Sanna Marin, surfaced, showing him—along with several other naked men in balaclavas—some of whom appeared to be doing the Nazi salute, the Helsinki-based tabloid newspaper Iltalehti reported.
Lindtman, who serves as the Social Democratic Parliamentary Group’s chairman—and who was, at least before this, the favorite to become the party’s next chairman—admitted that the “guys had obviously gone too far with the pose,” referring to the Nazi salute. He added,
I wasn’t a Nazi sympathizer then, and I’m not now. Even then, I was not on the good side of neo-Nazis because of my views.
But Lindtman’s actions—of 23 years ago—were quickly overshadowed Tuesday night, July 11th, when 15-year-old social media comments from Finns Party leader and current Finance Minister Riika Purra started circulating in the media. Purra, at that time a private citizen, had allegedly made comments on the blog of former Finns Party Chairman Jussi Halla-aho that have been described as racist. The posts ascribed to Purra—which she has not verified were written by her—reportedly included anti-immigrant rhetoric and racist slurs.
Purra tweeted a general apology Tuesday, saying, “I apologize for my stupid social media comments 15 years ago and the harm and resentment that they understandably caused. I’m not a perfect person, I’ve made mistakes.”
On Wednesday, Purra appeared at a press conference with PM Petteri Orpo and repeated her apology. Orpo, after saying his cabinet had discussed the issue, emphasized that his government has a zero-tolerance policy for racism and extremism and will present a plan to promote equality and inclusion later this fall.
In a post on her blog earlier this week, under the headline “Comment on Social Excavations,” Purra said,
As I stated in an interview a few weeks ago, the political parties opposed to Finns Party politics and the Finns Party will take their turn to target every Finns Party minister and other actor and make real or invented claims about their reproaches before the ministry or even their entire political career. Minister Junnila was made to resign, so they have no reason to quit. Once you get the taste of blood. Quite a few of us have already been in trouble—as, of course, many times over the years.
Finland’s former Economy Minister and Finns Party representative Vilhelm Junnila was forced to resign in late June after reports of him making references to Adolf Hitler at an event in 2019, and for, the same year, urging Finland to promote abortions in Africa to stem climate change and overpopulation.
And last week, Interior Minister Mari Rantanen—another Finns Party official—had to explain she was not a believer in “The Great Replacement” or “other conspiracy theories,” after media reports of Rantanen saying she believed Finns were being replaced in their country by other races.
Purra’s blog post continued:
As a member of parliament or a minister, I would certainly not write or say or even do all the things that I have written, said or done in the past. Of course. Time, age, environment. tasks, responsibility, etc. require different approaches and precision. This is also obvious to most people.
Social media, wokeism, cancel culture and our modern times that demand constant dismissal have changed the starting points. The direction is very worrying … People are imperfect, everyone is. In politics and on the streets, there is a reason to focus on actions and achievements.
In an interesting twist, Antti Lindtman saw fit to come out and criticize Purra on social media, despite having himself been the target of widely publicized problematic information from decades ago. Lindtman tweeted:
When the deputy prime minister says that it would never occur to her, to resign over previous writings, the question arises as to what the government’s policy on hate speech and racism is
While calls are being made for a parliamentary vote of confidence regarding Purra from, among others, Lindtman’s party colleague Krista Kiuru, at the time of writing, Lindtman’s political career appears to have suffered no ill consequences from his behaviors.
