Ever since I came back to Finland I have been fortunate enough to be able to follow the politics and election campaign of a girl from my home town. She is a candidate here even though she hasn't lived here in about 10 years. She's never been part of the local politics and hasn't served in the town council. I believe her only political experience is from being the chair person of the high school students union back in the day (about 8-10 years ago). Now she is the press assistant for the foreign minister of Finland...which I guess qualifies her to be an elected member of the finnish parliament.
Finland was announced to be the best place to live on earth/world's greatest country whatever whatever on Newsweek few weeks ago. It is based on the education, corruption or lack thereof, political stability and something else... I'm just gonna focus on the no corruption/transparency. We have the most honest politicians around, am I right? Since my arrival 2 months ago we have changed prime minister because he's suspected of being biased on giving out government money to an organization which gave him money for his campaign... that obviously isn't the official reason he left but he gave up his status as prime minister and is now being investigated. A MP from a nearby town was suspected of bribery which just this morning he was cleared, or should I say, the charges were dropped. He was speeding and when pulled over suggested to the cop that they should go get some coffee...major crime, I know, but the cop and the police force took it as a bribery attempt and charged him for it. I hope the number of times I've suggested a cup of coffee to someone isn't gonna come back to haunt me in the future! Now a minister is asked to provide information on her family member owning shares of a mining company. I did not read the article further as it's just gonna infuriate me. In the past few months few other MP's have been suspected of taking money from someone and either not reporting it or the organizations reputation being less than stellar.
This "local" wanna-be politician has been to every possible kissanristiäinen/ cat babtism (that's what we call all the small happenings where the local "cream" gather, where you can get your face seen, meet possible voters, an experience that you just have to have like the opening of the new shopping center, that in the grand scheme of things are not important happenings at all) there is on this area this summer. She has kick started her campaign with a bam. Some people here seem to think that it will bite her in the ass in the end, and I tend to agree. When it's time to vote, people around here have seen so much of her that they don't wanna have anything to do with her anymore. As for me...she represents a party that I would never ever vote for. This situation kind of reminds me of a conversation I had with my Aunt Minna few weeks ago. She told me they had been looking for a person to take care of kids at the kindergarden she works for...and one of the most outrageous applications said that the reason they could do the job was because she had been watching the people who take care of kids at their homes at the park/playground and it didn't look so difficult. No formal education to take care of kids. It's kinda like by working for a minister makes this girl qualified for being a MP. I'm not necessarily saying that she would be bad at it and there really isn't any "qualifications" to meet but to command respect and some kind of authority, I would like her to have some actual political experience, and more so, from Forssa. The only reason she can't do that is because she lives in Helsinki and to be a member of the town council, you NEED to live in that city. So if you can be a candidate here but live in Helsinki, why can't I vote for a candidate who is listed in Helsinki? Fair, I think.
Why I think politicians and athletes are the same? Majority of them are dirty. Maybe not even a majority but they always get caught. I think doping should be allowed in sports just so that the playing field would be even for all. If you think that running a 100m faster than anyone else is so important that it justifies having your balls shrink in a few years time and not being able to have kids, and having major mood swings and becoming violent is worth it, I say go for it! If having a brain aneurism is worth few years at the top of the sports world, be my guest. I would say that lets have the doping olympics and clean olympics but there would always be athletes at the clean olympics who would try to pass as clean but really weren't. What's the point of being clean when Marion Jones won the 100m + other events at the Sydney olympics only to get caught and confess few years later, for the gold medal to be awarded for a greek athlete who later herself got caught for using? Seems like plain old hard work doesn't really get you anywhere. Is few gold medals worth it when you start growing a beard? Even though your a woman? and having your breasts shrink? Your voice lower? Start looking like a man? I guess I cannot understand the appeal as I was never in a position to become a world class athlete. Thanks for that!
I guess the Finnish transparency is working as all these politicians are getting caught and investigated. I don't think it necessarily does any good for the Finnish reputation that we still do have these people who are willing to take campaign money from people and organizations that are less that reputable. Why don't we just open up the campaign funding to any and everybody? You be as blatantly biased as you wish and take money from whom ever. Vote for the things that your funders deem important and the hell with your voters! Let's all get connected!
Later peeps!
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