finnish democracy

[cimorene]

Actually, Finland is socialist, but whatever.

Yesterday Wax and I voted in the municipal elections. My first time, because... I guess it's my now being on social security that did it. I'm not eligible to vote in the national elections still, only the local ones.

Finland has a great deal of political parties, so there's more work involved: huge posters with the hundreds of candidate names organised in big blocks by party outside the door. We both wanted to vote Green and we scanned the list for female and Swedish-speaking names. Wax picked a Mikaela Sundqvist, obviously of Swedish-speaking descent and possibly an acquaintance ("I might know her. Her name sounds familiar. And she's in biochemistry") and I picked a middle-eastern looking name because I dig the immigrant-working-as-translator thing. So then we showed our ballot forms that we got in the mail and they gave us this tiny piece of paper, more like the kind of thing you'd use to vote for the homecoming queen. It's about the size of a Thank-You note, with a seal on the outside and on the inside, just a big empty white circle a few inches in diameter that says "No.:" inside it.

I turned it backwards and forwards and looked everywhere for some instructions. The lack of instructions was distressing. But finally I figured I was just meant to write the candidate's number in the circle. That seemed a little too simple so I did a nice serif lettering, sort of large, and shaded the numbers in. And that was it. I asked on the way out to make sure I did it right, and Wax says I did. So now I have contributed to two elections this month (since I mailed the absentee ballot for Alabama a few weeks ago).

Oh! And both my candidate and Wax's got elected. The Greens gained two seats on the city council. SDP (social democrats) lost two of those and Center (right wing bastards) lost the other! The Coalition party - the Republicans of Finland, kind of, except there aren't any really, so they're more like Democrats actually - are in charge overall though.

Comments

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

Hee, I have always had problems with trying to figure out American Democratic Party and Republican party from each other, because in here, it's most common to place all parties to the axel of
Right Wing <---> Communists. So for the Finnish eye, American parties (all two of them! what kind of democracy has only two parties??) are like Right Wing Party and Even More Right Wing Party. On the other hand, Finland doesn't have an issue with if more power should be given to the different states municipalities or not.

[guinevere33.livejournal.com]

Head further south towards Austria and you get the even more confusing Fascist<--->Communist spectrum. I've always found that the two-axis system makes the most sense:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:European-political-spectrum.png

The American Democrats probably fall in the center of the LEFT/AUTHORITARIAN square, while the Republicans are in the center of the RIGHT/AUTHORITARIAN square. Of course, that's not counting the fiscal conservatives, who fall in the RIGHT/LIBERTARIAN box and who hate being shoehorned in with the social conservatives.

[bluesbell.livejournal.com]

I'm appalled the extreme right wing bastards gained two seats where they previously had none.

But, my candidate got elected also and will be there to kick their asses, so that's good.

[anatsuno.livejournal.com]

um, I am distressed by your first sentence - does it imply that socialism is the opposite of democracy? huh?

yaye for getting to vote where you live! I'm really glad we get to do that across the EU now.

[dreamnnightmare.livejournal.com]

not that Socialism and democracy are opposites,simply that they are different. a democracy, in these strict sense, is a one-person equals one vote government. In a republic, often called a democracy, a group of people are represented by a single person and that single person wields one vote for them. In a socialist system resources are distributed among the citizens so that those in need receive the assistance they require. Of course, no real government is a true democracy and no real government is a true socialist one either. But the point is that they aren't really on a spectrum as far as I'm concerned. It's more like bananas and walnuts. Plenty of republics are also socialist; that's the government the United States has. Or you could say that we are a socialist oligarchy. Maybe we are all three.

[anatsuno.livejournal.com]

That's what I thought too - apples and oranges, democracy means something about the mode of choice of the governants while socialism refers to ideology applied by same, etc. Which is why the first sentence of Cim's post is dissonant: "Finnish democracy / Actually, Finland is socialist, but whatever" reads like Cim said one thing, then corrects it, as though she's said something wrong, picked the wrong word at first: "no wait, I meant--"

That is what I was pointing out. :)

[cimness.livejournal.com]

The US is only very slightly socialist, though - and ideologically I'd say it was anti-socialist.

[dreamnnightmare.livejournal.com]

we as a society say we are antisocialist when we are fundamentally socialist at least for the last few generations. Also, we are very socialist about some things and not at all socialist about others. We do what suits the people in power. And that's actually the way E European "socialist" governments operated and still operate. Socialist Western Europe is more generally socialist, but things are still done to suit those who rule.

[lovebashed.livejournal.com]

haha, congrats on being able to vote! i couldn't, since i'm still registered in uppsala, sweden, instead of any finnish municipality.

[anglepoiselamp.livejournal.com]

I noticed that the immigrant translator got elected and thought it was cool. Overall the list of elected candidates looked good (unlike the one for Somero, where my mom is still in rage because of all the conservatives and incompetents who got elected over her).

I ended up not voting because I felt too anxious on Sunday. But my candidate got elected as well, so I don't feel particularly guilty this time around.