Riikka Purra, the chairperson of the Finns Party, and Pekka Aittakumpu gave the thumbs-up while posing for a photo in Oulu, North Ostrobothnia, on Saturday, 19 October 2024. Aittakumpu, a second-term MP for the Centre from Oulu, on Saturday announced he will leave the Centre Party to join the Finns Party. (Matti Matikainen – Handout)
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PEKKA AITTAKUMPU, a second-term Member of the Finnish Parliament for the Centre, on Saturday announced he has defected to the Finns Party.
Aittakumpu outlined to Helsingin Sanomat that he wants to serve as a counterforce to various left-wing ideologies that are “eroding society,” such as “fanatic climate policy” and liberal policies toward gender minorities that enable people to “change their gender once a year”.
“I feel that my politics and values have stayed the same. Something else has changed,” he said, refraining from directly criticising the Centre Party.
The Finns Party, he also estimated, offers better opportunities to defend the Finnish culture, language and way of life, and work toward goals related to themes such as YLE and Extinction Rebellion Finland.
“These are things where we’ve co-operated a lot earlier. The co-operation has been good.”
Aittakumpu has not been shy about his sympathy for the populist right-wing party, being the lone member of his former party to support the government in the face of, for example, interpellations brought against Minister of Economic Affairs Wille Rydman (PS) and Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Ville Tavio (PS).
Earlier this month he also raised eyebrows with a social media post that parroted the alarmist immigration language of the Finns Party.
“Every MP should pay a visit to Itäkeskus, for example. I visited it. Finland is said to follow Helsinki. If you can see the future in Itäkeskus, it seems that we could then have minarets instead of churches and a sharia law instead of democracy,” he wrote on X.
Antti Kurvinen, the chairperson of the Centre Parliamentary Group, on Saturday said to YLE that news of Aittakumpu’s defection came as a surprise to the group.
“This is naturally sad, regrettable and surprising news. I and the rest of the party leadership had no advance knowledge of this. We were notified about this a minute or two before the press conference started,” he said to the public broadcasting company.
Aittakumpu had briefed Minister of Finance Riikka Purra, the chairperson of the Finns Party, about his plans earlier last week.
Helsingin Sanomat on Sunday reminded that Aittakumpu had seemingly expressed his disapproval with the values of the populist right-wing party as recently as last year. In July 2023, he penned a column about the racism controversy kindled by revelations about the racist online posts and actions of senior members of the Finns Party, saying the “old online posts and online images” reveal the key difference between the Centre and Finns Party.
“It’s a difference of the concept of humanity.”
The Finns Party’s “dismissive approach to texts and images that question the human dignity of our neighbours” is “difficult to comprehend,” he wrote in the column published in Suomenmaa, the main mouthpiece of the Centre Party.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
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Source: www.helsinkitimes.fi
