The Finland Syndrome of Mr. 47

Is this 'Chinese democracy' in Finland? The prime minister Matti Vanhanen came up with an idea of changing the retiring age to 65 when he was skiing in Lapland. Just like our beloved former president Kekkonen who ruled Finland for 26 years. Those were the days of democracy, LOL!

Yesterday the infamous 'Lex Nokia' (which I also blogged about earlier) was accepted by the parliament: 96 pro and 56 against. Some people claim that Nokia was putting pressure on politicians although Nokia leaders deny it (how else?).

What strikes me bad, is the fact that as many as 47 members of the parliament were absent in voting. That many people had something better to do at the moment. Cheese, we have elected ALL of them to do their job. And, if those 47 were actually against the new law change but were afraid to drop by and vote against the will of the group decision in their party, they are real cowards. Hats off to two courageous members who did so. As we can calculate, the sum of 56 and 47 would have been enough to annul the Lex Nokia.

What makes me mad, is the fact that those 47 opportunists can later bark at both directions. If the law proves out to be succesful in retrospect, they can claim to have supported it all along. Then again, if it turns out to be a catastrophe, they can say they didn't like it in the first place. Man, I'm getting more and more sick and tired of politics, day by day!