Finland is accustomed to being regarded as a stable democracy where politics does not generate the kind of polarization seen in some other countries. While there has been political violence here, including a bloody civil war initiated and lost by the Reds over a hundred years ago, politics has been relatively calm and respectful of different parties since World War II.
This trend is expected to continue this winter as a new president is elected in Finland. As a sign of this, various candidates' campaign advertisements have recently appeared along the streets, usually left undisturbed.
Among Finland's major cities, Tampere is an industrial city, and accordingly, its population tends to lean towards the left politically. Despite this, I was surprised this morning to read about how people in Tampere had immediately vandalized campaign posters of the third most popular candidate, Jussi Halla-aho (Finns Party), according to polls.
Does this mean that the deep respect Finns have held for democracy throughout my lifetime is changing, and the left is once again radicalizing and resorting to extra-parliamentary means? Hopefully not, as one of the key factors in Finland's rise from a developing country a hundred years ago to one of the world's wealthiest nations has been based on precisely respecting democracy and the ability to reconcile conflicts between different population and interest groups.
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