Finns Party

The Finns Party,[21][22][23] formerly known in English as the True Finns (Finnish: Perussuomalaiset, PS, Swedish: Sannfinländarna, Sannf.),[note 1] is a Finnish right-wing populist political party.[27] It was founded in 1995 following the dissolution of the Finnish Rural Party.

For the political party known as Finnish Party (1860s–1910s), see Finnish Party.
"True Finns" redirects here. It is not to be confused with Finns proper.

Finns Party

Perussuomalaiset (Finnish)
Sannfinländarna (Swedish)
LeaderJussi Halla-aho
First deputy leaderRiikka Purra
Second deputy leaderArja Juvonen
Third deputy leaderJuho Eerola[1]
Founded11 May 1995
Preceded byFinnish Rural Party (de facto)
HeadquartersIso Roobertinkatu 4
FI-00120 Helsinki[2]
Youth wingFinns Party Youth (2006–2020)
Women's wingFinns Party Women[3]
Membership (2018) 11,000[4]
IdeologyFinnish nationalism[5]
National conservatism[6][7]
Economic nationalism[8]
Social conservatism[9][7]
Right-wing populism[7][10][11]
Euroscepticism[5][12]
Anti-immigration[13][12]
Anti-Islam[14]
Political positionRight-wing[12][15][16] to
far-right[13][17][18][19][20]
European Parliament groupIdentity and Democracy
Nordic affiliationNordic Freedom
ColoursGold, blue and white
Parliament
38 / 200
European Parliament
2 / 14
Municipalities
770 / 8,999
Website
www.perussuomalaiset.fi

In the 2011 parliamentary election, the party won 19.1% of votes,[28] becoming the third largest party in the Finnish Parliament.[29] In the 2015 election the party got 17.7% of the votes, making it the parliament's second-largest party.[30] The party was in opposition for the first 20 years of its existence. In 2015 it joined the government coalition formed by Prime Minister Sipilä. Following a 2017 split, over half of the party's MPs left the parliamentary group and were subsequently expelled from their party membership. This defector group, New Alternative (later renamed as Blue Reform), continued to support the government coalition, while the Finns Party went into opposition. It increased its representation from 38 to 39 seats in the 2019 parliament election.

The party combines left-wing economic policies[31] with conservative social values, socio-cultural authoritarianism , and ethnic nationalism.[32] Several researchers have described the party as fiscally centre-left, socially conservative,[33] a "centre-based populist party" or the "most left-wing of the non-socialist parties", whereas other scholars have described them as radically right-wing populist.[32][note 2] In the parliament seating order, the party was seated in the centre of the plenary until 2019 when they were moved to the right of the plenary despite their opposition to the move.[27] The party's supporters have described themselves as centrists.[36] The party has drawn people from left-wing parties but central aspects of their manifesto[37] have gained support from right-wing voters as well.[38][39][note 3] The Finns Party has been compared by international media to the other Nordic populist parties and other similar nationalist and right-wing populist movements in Europe that share Euroscepticism and are critical of globalism, whilst noting its strong support for the Finnish welfare state.[42][43]

History

Finnish Rural Party

The predecessor of the Finns Party was the Finnish Rural Party (Suomen maaseudun puolue, SMP), founded by Agrarian League dissident Veikko Vennamo in 1959. Vennamo ran into serious disagreement with Arvo Korsimo, the Agrarian League's party secretary, and was excluded from the parliamentary group. As a result, Vennamo immediately started building his own organization and founded the Finnish Rural Party. Vennamo was a populist and became a critic of President Urho Kekkonen and of political corruption within the "old parties", particularly the Centre Party (the renamed Agrarian League). The Rural Party achieved two major victories in the elections of 1970 and 1983, winning 18 and 17 seats respectively. In the 1970s, Vennamo's personalized leadership style alienated some in the party, which led to a split in the parliamentary group in 1972. After the Rural Party's new rise in 1983 under Vennamo's son Pekka, the party became a partner in two coalition governments. However, the party's support declined steadily in the late-1980s and early-1990s. In 1995, the party won only one seat in the Finnish parliament and soon filed for bankruptcy.

Founding of the Finns Party and its rise in popularity
True Finns stall at Hakaniemi square, Helsinki in 2010.

In the summer of 1995, following the collapse of the Finnish Rural Party, the decision to found the Finns Party was made by Timo Soini, Raimo Vistbacka, Urpo Leppänen and Kari Bärlund. Soini had been the Rural Party's last party secretary and Vistbacka its last chairman and MP. The party collected the five thousand signatures needed for registration and was added to the official party register on 13 October 1995.[44] The first party congress was held in November. Vistbacka was elected party chairman and Soini the party secretary.[45]

It took some time before the Finns Party gained ground in Finnish elections. At the time of its founding in 1995, the party's sole MP was Vistbacka, who was reelected in the 1999 election. In 2003, the party won three seats: besides Vistbacka, Soini and Tony Halme were elected. In the 2007, the party gained two further seats for a total of five. In the 2008 municipal election, the Finns Party were most successful in those districts where the Social Democrats and the Left Alliance lost most.[46] In the 2011 election, the Centre Party suffered the largest blow from the Finns Party's success.

According to a 2008–2009 study, Finns Party supporters viewed themselves as centrist: on a scale where 1 was extreme left and 10 was extreme right, the average supporter placed themselves at 5.4. According to the same study, the supporters were united by patriotism and social conservatism.[47] A 2011 study indicated that the Finns Party was the most popular party among voters with an annual income of 35,000–50,000 euros, while over a quarter of the party's voters earn over 50,000 per year.[48][49] The same study also indicated that the party's voters included a higher percentage of blue collar workers than those of the Social Democrats.[49]

Timo Soini
Timo Soini, chairman for 20 years.

Timo Soini led the Finns Party for twenty years, from 1997 until 2017. He was first elected to the parliament in 2003. He was the party's candidate in the 2006 presidential election, and was elected to the European Parliament in 2009 with the highest personal vote share in the country.[50] He served as an MEP for two years, returning to the Finnish parliament in the 2011 election. Soini was the party's presidential candidate for a second time in the election of 2012.[51] Jussi Halla-aho succeeded Soini as party chairman in 2017.

2011–2017
Support for the Finns Party by municipality in the 2011 parliamentary election—the Finns Party's support was spread out quite evenly across the country.[52] In 2011, the Finns Party's strongest electoral district was Satakunta (23.6%), while the strongest municipality was Kihniö (53.2%). The weakest electoral district for the party was the capital Helsinki (13%). Compared to the rest of the country, the party's support was also low in municipalities with a high percentage of Swedish speakers.
Support by municipality in the 2015 parliamentary election.

The Finns Party obtained 39 seats in the 2011 election, making them the third largest party, narrowly behind the National Coalition Party (44) and the Social Democrats (42). Soini received 43,212 personal votes, the highest number of all candidates,[53] leaving behind the Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb and the Finance Minister Jyrki Katainen in their Uusimaa electoral district.[54] The popularity of the party rose from 4.1% to 19.1% in just four years. Helsingin Sanomat wrote in an editorial that the party and Soini had "rewritten the electoral history books".[55] According to political analyst Jan Sundberg, Soini had the ability to appeal to common people and make complicated things look easy.[56] The election result was also referred to as "shocking" and "exceptional".[28]

After the election, the National Coalition Party (NCP) began negotiations aiming to form a cabinet between the NCP, the Social Democrats, and the Finns Party. However, when it became clear that the NCP and the Social Democrats would continue to support EU bailouts, which the Finns Party vehemently opposed during the electoral campaign, the party voluntarily broke from the negotiations to become the leading opposition party. Soini said that the party would not compromise its core principles just to enter the government.[57] According to an opinion poll, most of the party's supporters accepted this decision.[58]

The Finns Party's popularity initially continued to rise after the 2011 election: in one opinion poll from June 2011 gave the party a record popularity of 23 percent.[59] The party's membership rose to over 8,000 members by 2013[60] (up from circa 5,500 in 2011[61] and circa 1,000 in 2005[62]). Membership in the party's youth organisation rose as well, going from 800 before the 2011 election[63] to over 2,200 in 2013.[64]

The party nominated Soini as its candidate for the 2012 presidential election;[51] Soini finished fourth with 9.4 percent.[65] Soini interpreted the result by saying that half of the party's voters wanted him for president, while the other half wanted to him to remain as party chairman.[66] In municipal elections later in 2012, the party got 12.3 percent of votes and 1,195 seats in the municipal councils, up more than 750 from the previous municipal election.[67] However, this result saw the votes for the party shrink significantly from the 2011 parliamentary election result. The party got 12.9 percent of votes in the 2014 European Parliament election and increased its number of MEPs to two.

In the 2015 election, the Finns Party got 17.7% of the votes and 38 seats. This meant that they were the third largest party by votes but the second largest party by seats. The Finns Party subsequently entered into a coalition government with the Centre Party and the NCP, led by Prime Minister Juha Sipilä. The party's participation in the Sipilä Cabinet marked a softening of its Eurosceptic positions. On 22 June 2016, Finns Party MP Maria Tolppanen joined the Social Democrats, after which the Finns Party had 37 seats in the parliament.[68] In March 2017, Soini announced that he would step down as party chairman in the next party congress in June.[69]

2017 leadership election and split
Dr. Jussi Halla-aho, chairman elected in 2017.

In June 2017, Jussi Halla-aho and Sampo Terho faced off in the leadership election, in which Halla-aho received 949 votes against Terho's 646 votes and thus succeeded Soini as party chairman.[70] Sipilä and Finance Minister Petteri Orpo soon announced that they would not continue their coalition with the Finns Party if it was led by Halla-aho.[71] Subsequently, twenty Finns Party MPs, including Soini and Terho, defected to form a new parliamentary group under the name New Alternative, later renamed into Blue Reform. As all cabinet ministers were among the defectors, the Blue Reform made an agreement with Sipilä to stay in the government.[72][73]

Following the split, MPs Veera Ruoho and Arja Juvonen left the Finns Party parliamentary group to continue as independents, after which the party's seats were reduced to fifteen.[74][75] All of the defecting MPs were subsequently expelled from the Finns Party.[76] In the following weeks, MPs Ritva Elomaa and Arja Juvonen regretted their decision and re-joined the party, raising the amount of MPs to seventeen.[77]

The party nominated MP Laura Huhtasaari as its candidate for the 2018 presidential election. In the election, Huhtasaari placed third with 6.9 percent of the votes, while the incumbent president Sauli Niinistö went on to secure his second term with a majority of votes.[78]

In the European Parliament

When the Finns Party first gained representation in the European Parliament in 2009, it became a founding member of the Europe of Freedom and Democracy Group (EFD) in the Parliament. After the 2014 election, however, the party chose to leave the EFD to join the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR). Commenting on the party's choice of group, party secretary Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo said in 2014 that joining a right-wing parliamentary group would not change the party's characteristic of being a "centre-left workers' party".[79] After the 2019 election the party joined the Identity and Democracy Group.

Policies

In evaluating the Finns Party's 70-page program for the 2011 election Mikko Lahtinen, political scientist in the University of Tampere, and Markku Hyrkkänen, historian of ideas in the University of Turku, note that nationalism is a theme consistently repeated throughout the program. According to them the party presents populism as a noble ideology, which seeks to empower the people. Lahtinen describes the rhetoric used in the program as a refreshing change to the politically correct "jargon" of mainstream media, and believes that the Finns Party may have succeeded in gaining supporters from the traditional left-wing parties by presenting a more attractive form of criticism of neoliberalism than those parties.[80]

Ville Pernaa, political scientist, described the party's 2015 electoral program by saying that the Finns Party combines elements of both right-wing and left-wing politics along with populist rhetoric.[81]

Policies of the Finns Party in 2011 include the following:[82][83]

Fiscal

The Finns Party has proposed more progressivity to taxes to avoid the establishment of flat taxation. The party has called for the raising of the capital gains tax and the re-institution of the wealth tax. According to the party, the willingness to pay taxes is best guaranteed by a society unified by correct social policies – the electoral program warns against individualist policies, which weaken the solidarity among citizens. "The willingness to pay taxes is guaranteed by having a unified people", the program reads (p. 46).[83]

Some observers have compared the Finns Party's fiscal policies to the old national Social Democratic taxation policy, which has given the left-wing brand to the Finns Party. During the electoral campaign in 2011 Soini stated that he preferred the Social Democrats over the center-right National Coalition Party as a possible coalition partner in a future cabinet. Soini has stated that the Finns Party is a "workers' party without socialism".[86] A researcher for the opinion polling company Taloustutkimus agreed, describing the Finns Party as a "non-socialist workers' party".[87]

  • State support for rural regions, including support for agriculture

The Finns Party's rural policy program suggests state subsidies to relieve the effect of structural changes on the rural areas.[83] This policy is shared by the Centre Party in Finland and originates from the agrarian and rural policies of both parties.

  • Increased state investment in infrastructure and industry[83]

The Finns Party favours state investments in infrastructure and industry as well. A tendency towards favouring old industrial policies have led some political analysts to label the Finns Party as a center-left party.

Energy
  • Aspiration to energy self-reliance and support for nuclear energy[83][88]
  • Pro-industry environmental policy – opposition to green tax reform and to taxpayers' involvement in emission trading funds[83]

Cultural
  • Teaching "healthy national pride" in schools, because the unity of citizens is the basis of society.[89][90]
  • Removal of the obligatory character of the second official language (Swedish in Finnish-language schools and vice versa) in curriculums on all levels of education, freeing up time for the learning of other foreign languages such as English, German, French, Spanish and Russian (especially in the eastern part of the country).[83][91] Obviously allowance regarding the use of the Swedish language and its teaching will have to be made for those communes where Swedish-speaking populations are in the majority or a large percentage of the population – Swedish is a legally recognized 'second language' of Finland.
  • Support for cultural activities that "promote Finnish identity"[83][90]

The cultural program of the Finns Party, which proposed subsidizing traditional art over postmodernist art, prompted criticism from outside the party and generated debate within the party as well.[92] Some critics of the policy called it overtly populist[93] or said that the state should not interfere with the content of art.[94] A poll commissioned by Helsingin Sanomat at the time of the controversy found that a majority, 51 percent, of Finns agreed with the party's stance on ending subsidies for postmodern art.[94]

Social
  • Supporting the traditional family model;[95] opposing same-sex marriage, same-sex adoption and in vitro fertilization given to same-sex couples and single women.[83]

Immigration

Regarding immigration policy the 2011 manifesto emphasises:[83][84]

  • Limiting humanitarian immigration strictly to refugee quotas (which should be adapted to correspond with the economic situation),
  • Limiting family unification to proven direct relatives only, and requiring means of subsistence from the immigrant,
  • Deporting those immigrants guilty of serious or recurrent crimes,
  • Welcoming work-based immigration, provided the immigrants pay taxes and abide by Finnish labour laws,
  • Granting Finnish nationality after five years' residence in Finland, provided the immigrant masters Finnish, has no criminal record, and has means of subsistence

The party also requires that immigrants accept Finnish cultural norms.[84] The only written declaration to the European Parliament made by a True Finn MEP also concerns immigration matters.[96] The party underlines the role of national sovereignty in immigration issues:

[True] Finnish immigration policy should be based on the fact that the Finns should always be able to decide for themselves the conditions under which a foreigner can come to our country and reside in our country.

— True Finns' Program for the 2011 election (p. 40)[83][97]

In 2015 the party's immigration programme included demands like:[98][99]

  • Lowering the refugee quota
  • Opposition to the planned burden-sharing mechanisms of the Common European Asylum Policy
  • Opposition to using public funds to advance multiculturalism
  • Tightening the conditions of family unification by migrants
  • Allowing the immigration of workers from outside the EU and EEA countries only if they are found to be necessary in a given field in a means test by the Finnish Labour Office
  • Making sure that migrants living on welfare benefits are not concentrated in the same areas
  • Outlawing begging in public places
  • Ending positive discrimination

In their 2019 election manifesto the party called for a prohibition on wearing the burqa and the niqab in public.[100]

Timo Soini signed a pan-European charter against racism in 1998.[101] However, in 2009, before the European Parliament election, Soini refused to sign an anti-racism appeal, saying that the appeal was an attempt to influence the party's choice of candidates (the appeal was drawn up by another political party). All other Finnish parties signed this appeal against racism.[102] In May 2011, following controversies surrounding the remarks of the Finns Party's MP Teuvo Hakkarainen, the Finns Party's parliamentary group issued a statement condemning all racism and discrimination, including affirmative action.[103] The party invited other parties to sign the statement as well, but no other party did so. In December 2011, an opinion poll revealed 51% of Finns Party voters agreed with the statement, "People of certain races are unsuited for life in a modern society."[104]

Foreign and defence

Timo Soini has been an outspoken critic of both the EU and NATO, but has stated that if a choice had to be made, NATO is a lesser evil than the EU. The Finns Party favors non-alliance or neutrality, as international activities abroad for the Defence Forces would undermine the defence budget's funds for sustaining a large conscript army of war-time personnel (which is 350,000) to guarantee the defence of all of Finland.[83][84] When the Finnish Parliament voted to ratify the Ottawa Treaty, banning anti-personnel mines, in November 2011, the Finns Party was the only party unified in opposing the treaty.[105]

The party believes in national sovereignty:

[T]he eternal and unlimited right to always decide freely and independently of all of one's affairs lies only and solely with the people, which forms a nation separate of others.

— True Finns' Program for the 2011 election (p. 7)[83][90]

Under the leadership of Jussi Halla-aho the party has hardened its position towards the European Union. In 2017, Laura Huhtasaari stated that she would support leaving the EU should she win the 2018 Finnish presidential election.[106] Other party members have supported the idea of Finland withdrawing from both the Schengen Agreement and the Eurozone.[107][108]

Judicial

During the 2011 election the party's judicial programme included:[83]

  • Tougher punishments for violent crime[109]
  • More resources for police and prosecutors
  • Opposition to any incorporation of Sharia law into judicial practices

Election results
Finns Party results by constituency,
2019 parliamentary election[110]
Constituency Votes
(%)		 Avg. result
+/− (pp)
Satakunta 24.1 +6.6
Tavastia 21.0 +3.5
Oulu 20.4 +2.9
Finland Proper 19.1 +1.6
South-Eastern Finland 18.9 +1.4
Savonia-Karelia 18.1 +0.6
Central Finland 18.0 +0.5
Pirkanmaa 17.3 -0.2
Lapland 17.2 -0.3
Vaasa 17.1 -0.4
Uusimaa 15.9 -1.6
Helsinki 12.3 -5.2
Finland (total) 17.5 0

Parliamentary elections
Election Votes % Seats +/– Position Status
1999 26,440 0.99
1 / 200
 9th in opposition
2003 43,816 1.57
3 / 200
 2 8th in opposition
2007 112,256 4.05
5 / 200
 2 8th in opposition
2011 560,075 19.05
39 / 200
 34 3rd in opposition
2015 524,054 17.65
38 / 200
 1 2nd in coalition (2015–2017)
in opposition (2017–2019)
2019 538,805 17.5
39 / 200
 1 2nd in opposition

Presidential elections
Election year Candidate 1st round Position
# of overall votes % of overall vote
2000 Ilkka Hakalehto 31,405 1.03 6th
2006 Timo Soini 103,368 3.43 5th
2012 Timo Soini 287,571 9.40 4th
2018 Laura Huhtasaari 207,337 6.93 3rd

European Parliament elections
European Parliament
Election year # of total votes % of overall vote # of seats won
1996 15,004 0.67% 0
1999 9,854 0.79% 0
2004 8,900 0.54% 0
2009 162,930 9.79% 1
2014 222,457 12.87% 2
2019 252,990 13.8% 2

Municipal elections
Municipal councils
Election year # of total votes % of overall vote # of seats won
1996 21,999 0.93% 138
2000 14,712 0.66% 109
2004 21,417 0.90% 106
2008 137,497 5.39% 443
2012 307,797 12.34% 1,195
2017 227,297 8.8% 770

Leadership

Chairmanship and party secretaries
An ex-police commissioner and MP Raimo Vistbacka was elected the first chairman of the Finns Party in the Kokkola Party Congress in November 1995. Photograph from 2011.

The party chairmanship is divided between four persons, elected at party congress biannually. Jussi Halla-aho is the party's chairman. The first deputy chair is Riikka Purra, the second deputy chair is Arja Juvonen and the third deputy chair is Juho Eerola.[111]

Raimo Vistbacka chaired the Finns Party from 1995 to 1997. The party secretary Timo Soini succeeded Vistbacka as chairman in 1997.

Rolf Sormo followed Timo Soini as party secretary and served from 1997 to 1999. The third party secretary, Hannu Purho, served for eight years, from 1999 to 2007. After him, Timo Soini's parliamentary assistant, Ossi Sandvik, was elected party secretary in 2007. He was succeeded by Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo, who was elected as party secretary in 2013.[112] She was succeeded by Simo Grönroos in 2019.

Board

The board of the Finns Party has 13 members: the party chairman, the three deputy chairs, the party secretary, chair of the parliamentary group and seven other members.[1]

Foundations

The foundation Perussuomalaisten tukisäätiö ("The Finns Party support fund") was founded in 1990. It used the name SMP:n tukisäätiö until 2006. The fund borrowed 1.7 million euros from the party in 2012 to buy a 450 m2 commercial property in downtown Helsinki on Yrjönkatu for use as the Party's new headquarters. The Party rented these premises from the fund.[113]

Another fund, Suomen Perusta ("The Foundation of Finland"), was set up in 2012. Its role is to function as a think tank affiliated with the party.[114]

Elected representatives

Members of the Finnish Parliament

Ville Tavio is the current chairman of the parliamentary group.

Ano Turtiainen was expelled from the parliamentary group in June 2020 due to a tweet he made about the killing of George Floyd. Since Turtiainen became an independent MP, the parliamentary group of the Finns Party is no longer the biggest opposition group (tied with the National Coalition).[115]

Former members of parliament

European Parliament

Party chairmen

Party secretaries

Controversies

Several True Finns MPs and other party leaders have made public statements which others have interpreted as being racist or otherwise inflammatory. In 2011 True Finn MP James Hirvisaari was fined 1,425 euro by the Kouvola Court of Appeals for comments he made on his blog about Muslims.[116] In 2011 President Tarja Halonen was quoted characterizing some True Finn voters as racist.[117][118] Her comments were broadly condemned by the True Finn party.[118] A 2011 book by Swedish journalist Lisa Bjurwald made a similar characterization, that the party's leaders support racist positions, while publicly denying that they do so.[119]

In 2011 MP Pentti Oinonen declined an invitation to the presidential Independence Day ball, citing his aversion to seeing same-sex couples dance.[120] In a judgement given on 8 June 2012, MP Jussi Halla-aho, then Chairman of the Administration Committee was found guilty by the Supreme Court of both disturbing religious worship and ethnic agitation for statements he made about Muhammad in his blog.[121]

In October 2013 it was reported that a Finns Party member of parliament, James Hirvisaari, had invited far-right activist Seppo Lehto as his guest to the parliament. During his visit, Lehto made several Nazi salutes, including at least one instance where Hirvisaari took a photo of Lehto performing the Nazi salute from the spectator gallery overlooking the Parliament House's Session Hall. Photos and videos of Lehto performing the Nazi salute in the Parliament House were then distributed on Lehto's public Facebook page and on YouTube.[122] After newspapers broke news of the incident, Speaker of the Parliament Eero Heinäluoma issued a notice of censure to Hirvisaari for the incident and the Finns Party leadership unanimously decided to expel Hirvisaari from the party, citing multiple cases of acting against the party's interest.[123][124][125] Hirvisaari then became affiliated with the Change 2011 party as the party's MP, until he was unseated in the parliamentary election of 2015.[126]

In 2020, a number of members of parliament criticised the Academy of Finland for funding the research of Oula Silvennoinen at the University of Helsinki on The Holocaust, the genocide of the European Jews.[127]

Notes
  1. The party had no official English name until 2011,[24] but the name 'True Finns' was originally used by the party itself[25] and is still sometimes used by the international media, along with the literal translation 'Basic Finns'. The party's Finnish name has always remained the same and a practical translation of Perussuomalaiset would be 'Ordinary Finns', 'Regular Finns' or 'Typical Finns'. In August 2011, the party began using 'The Finns' as an official English name – the party chairman at the time, Timo Soini, said that the new name captured the image of the movement as a party of ordinary Finns.[24][26] The party's and the Finnish parliament's English websites, however, use the less confusing name, the 'Finns Party'.[23]
  2. Esa Vares and Erkka Railo describe the party primarily as a populist movement, a term embraced by the party itself. Although the title of their research is "Many Faces of Right-Wing Populism", Vares and Railo also describe the party's economic policies as centre-left and pro-welfare state while the party's stance on many social or "value" issues is described as conservative. Vares and Railo explicitly reject the far-right label, saying that the term has lost its analytical meaning (although they use it to refer to some smaller groups in Finland, they do not use it to describe the Finns Party).[34] The German political scientist Florian Hartleb has likewise rejected the views that present the Finns Party as an extremist movement. He says that the party's chairman Timo Soini "shows no racist or radical features". Hartleb continues to say that it would be a mistake to classify the party in the racist or extremist corner. Instead, Hartleb places them in a new generation of more moderate right-wing parties.[35]
  3. For instance, part nine of the True Finns' manifesto reads: "[True] Finnish immigration policy should be based on the fact that the Finns should always be able to decide for themselves the conditions under which a foreigner can come to our country and reside in our country."[40][41]
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  3. "NYTKIS – The Coalition of Finnish Women´s Associations". The Coalition of Finnish Women´s Associations. Retrieved 14 February 2019.
  4. Lepistö, Joonas (11 March 2018). "Perussuomalaiset ja vihreät kiinnostavat nyt eniten – jäsenmäärä noussut liki viidenneksen: "Halla-aho on hardcore-looginen"". MTV Uutiset (in Finnish). Retrieved 15 April 2019.
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  10. Kuisma, Mikko (2013). "Good" and "Bad" Immigrants: The Economic Nationalism of the True Finns' Immigration Discourse. The Discourses and Politics of Migration in Europe. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 93.Fryklund, Björn (2013). Populism – Changes Over Time and Space: A Comparative and Retrospective Analysis of Populist Parties in the Nordic Countries from 1965 to 2012. Right-Wing Populism in Europe: Politics and Discourse. Bloomsbury. pp. 267–269.Wahlbeck, Östen (2013). Multicultural Finnish Society and Minority Rights. Debating Multiculturalism in the Nordic Welfare States. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 313–315, 320.Korhonen, Johanna (2012). Ten paths to populism: How silent Finland became a playing field for loud populism (PDF). Populist Fantasies: European revolts in context. Counterpoint. p. 213.Ikkala, Markku (2012). Finland: Institutional Resistance of the Welfare State against a Basic Income. Basic Income Guarantee and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 65, 77.Hopia, Henna; Metelinen, Sami (2013). Finland: Sound Economic Policy, Long-term Challenges. From Reform to Growth. Centre for European Studies. p. 165.
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Further reading
  • Arter, David; Kestilä-Kekkonen, Elina (2014). "Measuring the Extent of Party Institutionalisation: The Case of a Populist Entrepreneur Party". West European Politics. 37 (5): 932–956. doi:10.1080/01402382.2014.911486.
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