While the world is following with interest whether it will be Obama or McCain this November, us finns will have to pick our favourite party and candidate at local elections already at the end of this month.

The election posters have just arrived:
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Which one you like the best?  ;)

Sanna

I'd have to go for Det Svenska Folkpartiet, ya know the rättvist poster, solely on the basis of language. I can read some Swedish but Finnish must be the most alien language in the world LOL!
Off course I have no idea what this party stands for, so I hope I haven't voted for some neo nazi's....
Enlighten me Sanna, what are they?

Greetings, Pascal.  :-?

Curious as I always am, I just HAD to look it up, and here's their FAQ:

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They don't seem too bad, though.

Think I'll stick to Dutch politics.... hard enough  :D.

Some look very family oriented but the third one looks like a beer label, the fifth one with the crossed paintbrush and hoe look like a familiar different symbol from Soviet land (sickle and hammer).  What the heck is that second one about!!

If I had to vote based only on the poster? I'd go with the second one.

It just amuses me to death. What's it say? XD

Pascal, you picked the party which usually takes care of the Finnish-Swedish people's needs. After all, Finland is a country with two official languages.

Kevin, the one with grandpa and a girl is a poster for SDP, Finland's Social Democratic party. The one with sickle and a hammer is for Kansallinen Kokoomus, which has been translated as Rainbow Coalition in English. The man in the poster is the party's current chairman and Secretary of the Treasury. And the second one -  the one with two chaps and a whip - is for Vihreä Liitto, our Green Party. They wanted to make sure that their poster is noticed this year... ;D

Pixie,
The text in that poster says: being brave means... courage to be different.

If you want me to translate all the texts, let me know. :)

Sanna

Not being able to read Finnish, I can only tell you what the posters look like to me:

Not real sure about the Vasemmistoliitto, SDP or the Keskusta

The Vihreät poster looks like a Hustler magazine BDSM cartoon.

The RKP one looks like a beer ad.

The Kokoomus poster looks like John-boy Walton as part of a hammer and sickle.

The dude in the Perussuomalaiset poster looks like a character from the  kids cartoon show Lilo and Stitch.  

The Kristillisdemokraatit looks like a generic travel poster.


I keep coming back to John-boy, though I am probably dooming you to working in a commune. START PRINTPAGEMultimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or END PRINTPAGESTART PRINTPAGEMultimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or END PRINTPAGE


G'nite MaryEllen!   :D

I like this one:

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Melissa wrote on Oct 8^th, 2008 at 10:22am:

I like this one: START PRINTPAGEMultimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or END PRINTPAGESTART PRINTPAGEMultimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or END PRINTPAGE

They look like socialists to me.  I wasn't too crazy about any of those posters.

Hey Sanna,

   Do people in Finland really smile like that guy in the Perussuomalaiset  poster?  It looked a very bad Andy Warhol impression.   lol

With knowing nothing about any of them at all, and not reading Finnish (I'm illiterate) I'd pick the third down on the right just from the looks of the poster.

Jerry

Choose Wisely!

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Your Greens are sure different from our Greens.   ;D

Best,

George

sandie99 wrote on Oct 8^th, 2008 at 9:06am:

Pixie, The text in that poster says: being brave means... courage to be different. If you want me to translate all the texts, let me know. :) Sanna

Well, while I'd love to know what they all say, but if everyone knew beforehand they may not pick just based on looks alone!  ;)

Thanks for the translation, I didn't even suspect that was what it said, but I love the meaning!

Mystina

Mike, the chairman of Kokoomus has been called "Jyrki-boy" (Jyrki is his first name) in a popular Saturday night political satire. You're not the only one who has noticed that he looks very young (he's actually 37).

Melissa, although I might not agree on everything that particular party stands for, I like that poster a lot - it summons quite nicely what this election is all about.  :)

Linda, the man in that poster is the chairman of that party. Back in here they like to use the party's leaders in the posters a lot. I'm not quite sure how popular he is, but he is the face of the party for many finns.

Jerry, I do hope that we can make wise decisions! My main concern is that the local elections are not as popular than other elections, which means that many voters don't turn up to cast their vote on the election day. I like to think that if you vote, you can complain about the results later on - at least you tried to elect the one you wanted! ;D

George, if we would look at the themes of both Green parties, they probably would be quite close to each other. But, as a quite small party, they need to stand out and get noticed and at local elections a poster like that is pretty much the only trick they've got. I'm not quite sure if that will mean more votes from them, but at least a lot of people are amused.


I wanted you to take a look at those posters and see what you think about them without knowing that much about the party in question or their message. That is the only way to know how universal their messages actually are.

For me personally the difficulty with these elections is that with so many parties and especially, so many candidates, there is not that much time to get to know them that well. I pretty sure that the people who vote for certain party always, will not change their minds that quickly, but still; how to pick the "right" candidate out of so many? I always vote, but I can understand very well why many of my friends have decided in the past not to.

Back in here many TV networks and newspapers have their own so called "Election machine", in which the voters can compare their opinions with the candidates' opinions what comes to local issues. I find it a useful tool in finding interesting candidates and after that I read about them and their personal themes a lot long before it's election day.

It's important to find a like-minded candidate, but I like to make sure that the party she/he represents is also suitable - after all, they will get the vote for sure, but my candidate might not be elected.

Sanna

Kasper:  Eetu, Sanna's got posters.  What do they mean?

Eetu:  She's picking a candidate.  Each has a different party.

Kasper:  These candy dates want to take Sanna to their party?  Can we have a party, Eetu.  I want to be Sanna's candy date.

Eetu:  Well, a candy date is a politician who sugar coats how good their party is going to be and then just gets drunk and spends Sanna's money.

Kasper:  So the candy dates need money to party?  What about Sanna?

Eetu:  Yeah, Sanna is choosing who will spend her money.  Usually they spend it on making their party bigger by giving it to their friends.

Kasper:  Is Sanna their friend?

Eetu:  Only on voting day.  

Kasper:  I don't want to be a candy date anymore, Sanna's my friend everyday!!.

Eetu:  There's a place that chooses many candy dates called U.S.

Kasper:  That's funny Eetu, we're guinea pigs and we call ourselves US, too!    

Eetu:  If the chosen candy dates spent a lot of money bailing out friends of the party who got in trouble, I guess those U.S. might be guinea pigs like US.

Kasper: Did you ever have to pay to be in an experiment, Eetu?

Eetu: Nope.  They told us to pay once but all of US voted not to and that was the experiment, proving guinea pig have smarts.  

Kasper:  Someone asked me once if I could spell pig backwards and say what color carrots are.  I said, "Gee I pee orange."  So yeah, we got smarts buddy.

Thank you again, Kevin. ;D
I showed it to Timo as well and we both had fun reading it.

I just hope that Eetu would be as smart in real life... But Kasper's the brainy one and Eetu is, well, Eetu. ;) He has his moments.

But they sure would make politics fun! ;D

Sanna