With parliamentary elections a heartbeat away on April 14, the populist far-right Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party announced that anti-immigration will be their main campaign theme. Are we surprised? Not in the bit.
PS Chairperson Jussi Halla-aho was quoted as saying in Yle that at the present rate, Finland’s immigration policy will destroy present levels of social welfare, undermine good salaries, good schools, gender equality among other problems.
“We want to make it tougher for people to move here,” he said. “We want to raise the requirements to get Finnish citizenship.”
See the short interview here.
Halla-aho knows that the upcoming parliamentary elections are a make or break election for him and the PS. The PS chairperson is, therefore, betting that anti-immigration rhetoric will give his party a good showing as it did in 2011 and 2015.
If the present opinion polls are anything to go by, the PS will not match its earlier parliamentary election showing by a long mile.
* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13, 2017, into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. Despite the name changes, we believe that it is the same party in different clothing. Both factions are hostile to cultural diversity never mind Muslims and other visible minorities. One is more open about it while the other says it in a different way.
A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.