By Panu Höglund

More than a year ago, the True Finns – the party of populists and demagogues in Finland – split and together with a new incarnation of the True Finns proper, a new political grouping called Blue Future was born.

Blue Future is basically just a vehicle for the old chairman of the True Finns, Timo Soini, which will enable him to stay on as foreign minister of Finland until the next parliamentary election, and after that there will probably be no future for Blue Future. As an ex-minister, though, Soini will have a nice chunk of money to live and prosper on.

As regards Jussi Halla-aho, the ill-reputed racist hate-monger who became party leader when Soini departed, he is a member of the European Parliament and gives orders to his minions through social media. Now, however, it seems he is going to return to the old country and leave the European parliamentary seat to another True Finn in the next elections. Who will inherit his seat? Who else but Teuvo Hakkarainen.

Hakkarainen was born to a family of sawmill owners in Viitasaari, eastern Finland in 1960. Thus, he was introduced to the Finns as a sawyer, ie an honest worker. Really, though, it seems he has only ever been a co-owner of his parents’ business and spent more time drinking than running the sawmill.

When he was 26 years old, Hakkarainen and his friends stole the silverware from Suomussalmi Church, probably because they needed more money for booze. Hakkarainen since made an attempt to find religion and change his habits, but he was soon back on the beaten track.

To start with, Hakkarainen was photographed half-naked, urging on a striptease girl at a nightclub. More of the same was coming, though. A club of bikers welcomed him to have a drink, and that turned out quite an adventure, for afterwards we could read in the slush press that Hakkarainen tried to buy sex from an African-looking woman who was present there; the member of parliament wasn’t willing to believe that she was no prostitute.

This does not mean that he wouldn’t be interested in women from his own country. Actually, he even succeeded in kissing against her will Veera Ruoho, a parliamentarian of his own party, with parliament in session, but as he was dead drunk even then, he could not apply force sparingly, and the consequence was that he almost turned Ruoho’s head out of joint. Now Hakkarainen is going to stand trial, because Ruoho had to undergo surgery to have her injuries dealt with. Consequently, it was no wonder she reported Hakkarainen to police for assault and battery.

Will Hakkarainen be elected to the European Parliament? Probably. He has been quite successful in parliamentary elections before – much less so in local government, because there he can only be voted for by people who know him personally, and most of them don’t seem happy to do so.

Panu Höglund is a Finn who writes in Irish.