True Finns

They are seen as populist, xenophobic, euro-phobic, islamophobic and homophobic and their great success eventually came as a big surprise, although the signs have been there since a long time. Parallels have been drawn to the similar minded parties in other Nordic countries, but the picture is more complex.

True Finns is a party with its roots in the 70's and the success story at that time. Then it was  called "The Party of the Finnish Countryside" , the protest movement of the peasants, who got sick and tired of the "corrupted lords", who had "forgotten the people".  Whereas comparable parties in neighboring countries have neo-fascist, racists and ultra-rightists tendencies, True Finns are in their messages concentrating in "the forgotten people" , at least in economic terms.

Earlier it was said that their supporters are found in the lower levels of the society; younger men with low education and high prosentage of unemployment, living in the suburbs of the cities with little hopes of better future.  This time, with huge increase of the votes, it can be said that True Finns are tempting people from all walks of the life.

True Finns -leader, Timo Soini (48), has been in politics for two decades  and is best known for his Euro-skeptic views. He was elected to the European Parliament in 2009, the place he calls "the core of the darkness" and where he says he have been for the past two years collecting valuable inside information about the madness of the place. Another popular expression used by Mr Soini is "Where there is EU, there is a problem".  The wildest dreamers of the True Finns go as far as finishing off the whole union and taking back the old Finnish currency, the Finnish Mark.

According to Mr Soini the EU has grown far too big and has got far too much to say in member states' internal affairs. He is a hardliner against Turkish membership, in his blog he writes that he cannot accept the poor human rights situation in Turkey and especially the oppression of the women.

In the EU there is a reason to be worried about the True Finns, since they can hinder the help package designed for saving the Portuguese economy.

Mr Soini is known for his language, which is very straight-forward and easy to understand. "He speaks, as I do", is a common comment and very much valued in the middle of all political jargon.

One very big reason for the success of the True Finns are the huge scandals of the previous years, where mainstream big parties have turned out to be corrupted. Businessmen have given money in order economic gains. The whole process have shown the "least corrupted country in the world" in a very different light.

A lot of Social Democratic Party voters have turned their back to the traditional big player and voted for True Finns. The other two mainstream parties, the National Coalition Party and the Center faced the same faith.

-It's a matter of a long term consensus and homogeneous trend among all the main parties. The big parties have alienated from the daily life of the people. The differences in income and health services have been increasing; the real rich people have become richer all the time, writes former Social democrat MP and the minister of finance, Arja Alho, in her blog.

Finland is still a welfare country, but the economical inequality is widely known and documented. The big parties did not pay attention - and as the result the True Finns made their impact.