Finland’s results in the European election bucked a continent-wide trend of rising support for parties on the outer fringe of right-wing politics, with the Left Alliance and the National Coalition winning big at the expense of the nationalist Finns Party.
Leftist leader Li Andersson received more votes than any other candidate has ever received in a European election.
This warms my hearth.
I’m actual a member of a small leftwing party in my own country and (having lived 2 decades abroad and seen other political realities and even been a member of the Green Party in Britain) have concluded they suffer exactly from the problem that well entrenched leadership are not “straight shooters calling bullshit out”, and instead their style of discourse “avoids giving offense”, sounding far too much (IMHO) like the mainstream supposedly-left party we have here and leaving an impression about the party (to those who aren’t tribalists predisposed to support and believe in anything the party’s leadership says) that they’re just another group looking to suckle from the tit of the state.
I think the problem in my party is due to the leadership being a very uniform group of 30-something well-off scions of the Middle Class (which, in a country that until the revolution of 74 that overthrew Fascism had very little Middle class, shows that they’re hardly coming “from the people”) who got to the leadership mainly due to nepotism (often being the sons and daughters of party founders) or by going to the same shcools and being similar to each other and talking the same talk as the rest - i.e. cronysm - and who, from the explanations I got from one of the party’s members of parliament for certain anti-Democratic practices inside the party, see themselves as superior to the rest of the members of the party (which probably explains why they listen - if at all - very little to the rest of the party and seem unable to change even after losing between half and two thirds of the vote).
So I hope I can use the example of the Left in Finland to internally push for a kind of change in leadership and discourse, towards one much more broadly representative of people in this country and who is willing to talk about how parts of the machine are broken and need replacing (and do so anchored on a proactivelly tought through vision for the future, rather than the mere reactivelly “complain about things blowing up after they blew up” so common in my country) rather than the current mild-mannered, frustrating reactive discourse that amounts to little more than “the car is fine, it’s just some some screws that need tightenning”.
I want to highlight that Andersson is still respectful and not offensive. The callouts are done honestly
Totally agree that leftism in a global sense needs to shift communication towards a more active and hopeful future. Everyone else is just sticking to the status quo or worse.
Let me guess, Portugal and Livre?