Finland’s National Coalition Party gives the PS a helping hand in normalizing racism

THIS STORY WAS UPDATED

Former Minister of Justice Antti Häkkänen, 34, is a conservative politician of the National Coalition Party (NCP) who doesn’t like Muslims and refugees. His recent tweet about Peussuomalaiset(PS)* party leader Jussi Halla-aho shows how the NCP has helped to make the PS and racism normal in Finland.

One of the matters that people say about Häkkänen in his home town of Mänyharju (pop. 5,900) is that apart from politics, he has never had a regular job.

What did Häkkänen tweet?

“Jussi Halla-aho [the chairperson of the PS who was convicted for ethnic agitation and breaching the sanctity of religion in 2012] has strong confidence from the people due to his thoughts and actions. He is a politician with whom you should cooperate.”

* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13, 2017, into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. In the last parliamentary election, Blue Reform was wiped off the Finnish political map when they saw their numbers in parliament plummet from 18 MPs to none. 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.