Finland’s new economic affairs minister and member of the nationalist Finns Party, Vilhelm Junnila, survived a confidence vote in parliament on Wednesday.
MPs votes on the measure fell 95-86 with three abstentions and 15 absences.
The confidence vote was called by three opposition parties, the Left Alliance, Green and Social Democratic parties, due to Junnila’s previous controversial statements and links to far-right groups.
Seven Swedish People’s Party MPs voted against Junnila, with the other three abstaining. Three National Coalition MPs were absent for the vote, but the other government party MPs voted their confidence in the controversial politician.
Junnila has joked about his election number (88) referencing ‘Heil Hitler’, campaigned at an election under the “gas” slogan and spoken at at least one event organised by a far-right group.
The recently-appointed minister apologised last week for his comments and actions, following two days of media controversy about the matter.
MPs also voted on the government programme, with 106 voting to support it, 78 voting against, and one abstention. 15 legislators were away for that vote.
Same appeal as other forms of extremism. You get a set of enemies to blame for everything wrong with the world. You can hate them and feel justified for it. You get simple solutions to complicated problems. You’re in the know, while ordinary people are being manipulated by some evil elite.
I do t like lumping all extremism into the same boats, because they’re drastically different. Nazi extremism is not the same as Bolshevik extremism, taliban extremists are not the same as anarchist extremists, and there are situations where the label “extremism” is applied to oppressed people trying to change things or face annihilation with the only means left open to them, and then there’s racist pricks who just don’t like black people and non Christian’s. There’s rich people who don’t want the poor to have any sort of quality of life, and there are poor people who just want to feed their families. It’s fucked.