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Out with ‘Rainbow Government’ and in with ‘Iraqgate’: The Finnish General Election of 2003

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

William M. Downs  and
Satu Riutta
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Abstract

Finland's March 2003 general election saw Anneli Jäätteenmäki lead her opposition Centre Party to a narrow victory over Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen's Social Democrat-led ‘rainbow government’. A generally lacklustre campaign, highlighted by concerns over unemployment, Finland's place in Europe and uncomfortable foreign policy decisions, is notable for making Jäätteenmäki Finland's first female prime minister and for making the country the first in the EU to have women as both prime minister and president. These distinctions proved fleeting, as scandal –‘Iraqgate’– drove Jäätteenmäki from office after only two months. Scandal aside, the election demonstrates the difficulties for still-new EU members of juggling domestic economic concerns with European and broader international commitments.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , 2005 , pp. 424 - 441
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2005.

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References

1 European Commission, ‘Eurobarometer: Public Opinion in the European Union’, Report 58 (fieldwork October–November 2002, released March 2003).Google Scholar

2 Campaign debate over immigration and taxation overshadowed the question of Sweden's entry into the euro-zone, largely because pro-euro and anti-euro sentiment cut so broadly across party lines.Google Scholar

3 Lars Leijonborg's Liberal Party became Sweden's third-largest party (racing past the Centre Party and the Christian Democrats) on a theme increasingly familiar in European Union countries – putting a brake on immigration in the face of increasingly porous national borders. The Liberals started a political firestorm during the campaign by proposing that immigrants (more than 7 per cent of Sweden's population are immigrants from outside the EU) pass a Swedish-language test prior to gaining citizenship.Google Scholar

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7 This is probably due to the low and decreased support among voters for NATO membership; in addition, politicians have said membership is not a matter of the next parliamentary term (although at the same time the political elite, so the voters believe, has already decided to apply for membership).Google Scholar

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15 See ‘Anneli Jaatteenmaki Had the Most Expensive Election Campaign’, Nordic Business Report, 20 May 2003, and ‘Candidates Spending More on Election Campaign than Before; TV Advertising Becomes more Common’, Helsingin Sanomat, 24 January 2003. Finland's new Act on the Notification of Election Financing, which requires elected candidates to disclose the name of each donor and value of contribution for each contribution exceeding E1,700, was applied for the first time in the 2003 election. In Finland there are no ceilings on campaign spending or political donations, and funds for individual candidacies derive traditionally from party coffers and unions; increasingly, though, party sponsored ‘seminars’ have become common and important sources of funding. According to information provided by their respective campaigns to the ministry of justice, Jäätteenmäki garnered E41,000 from a seminar on economics and Lipponen took in E14,000 for a seminar on communication and interaction. Such seminars are popular vehicles for financing campaigns, explains Green League party secretary Ari Heikkinen, because ‘Participation can cost hundreds of euros. Companies, for instance, can avoid disclosing campaign contributions by registering any number of people as participants at a seminar’, ‘Candidates Spending More’.Google Scholar

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18 See Erika Säynässalo, ‘Who to Hold Accountable: The Paradox of Representation in the Finnish Parliamentary Politics’, paper presented at the joint sessions of the European Consortium for Political Research, Edinburgh, 28 March–2 April 2003. Compare also Ian McAllister, ‘Rational or Capricious: Late Deciding Voters in Australia, Britain and the United States’, paper presented at the joint sessions of the European Consortium for Political Research, Copenhagen, 14–19 April 2000, and Bernt Aardal and Henrik Oscarsson, ‘The Myth of Increasing Personalization of Politics. Party Leader Effects on Party Choice in Sweden and Norway 1979–1998’, paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, 31 August–3 September 2000.Google Scholar

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