The new Finnish cabinet can be summed up in three phrases

- blackmail pays off

- women majority

- best-looking woman in previous cabinet dropped

I suspect the third one won't be on many people's lists but I thought that she was quite a good Culture minister and not the stupid ex-Miss some of her critics would have you believe. A couple of times I saw welcome signs of a sense of humour where other ministers in true Finnish style seem to be po-faced all the time. There was at one time some talk of her spending time late one night (at a party conference) in the room of the party leader (and prime minister). I think we can safely say that - as was said at the time - nothing happened. Conspiracy theorists would probably say that dropping her was the prime minister's revenge for that lack of "action" whereas in fact it was probably caused by a large loss in her personal vote in the latest election compared to the previous one (although that vote loss almost certainly happened because the PM switched constituencies and was this time in the same one as her, leading them to divide her old vote between them).

The first item in the list above refers of course to the unbelievable act of the PM in proposing the former many-years Foreign Minister (in the era of the Soviet Union) for the job of Foreign Trade minister. This amazingly big-headed ex Foreign Minister (Paavo Väärynen) from Lapland had first of all been a candidate for election to the Finnish parliament at the same time that he was an elected member of the European parliament but had then once elected to the Finnish Parliament as well had refused to register as a new member of that parliament unless he was given guarantees that he would become either Speaker of the Parliament or a Minister - otherwise he'd abandon his membership and just carry on as a Euro MP (you can't be both so registering for the Finnish parliament would have compelled him in a few days to give up the Euro seat). Everybody - including most of his own party - was disgusted by this tactic and were glad to see the back of him (as they thought) as he went back to Brussels. However the PM put him on his minister list and it takes a bold Center Partyist to vote against the PM so Väärynen made it (but only just - there was still a large minority prepared to stub party discipline in order to try to get rid of him).

I pity the new Foreign Minister because (theoretically) big-head as Foreign Trade minister is his junior in the Foreign Ministry. Now that guy (Kanerva of the Conservatives) not only has pressure from "below" but also doubly from above as the PM likes to dabble in Foreign Affairs as well and then there's the Social Democrat President who also has a Foreign Affair role to play as well when she feels she wants to (she can pick and choose which EU meetings she attends (with the PM) and only if she doesn't want to does the FM get a look in. Still it's hard to be sorry for the new FM because a couple of years ago there was a scandal about the guy sending explicit text messages (SMS) to young girls and women (he's 59 now) and of course in typical Finnish politician style nothing happened and he was kept on as deputy Speaker.

Finally the second (more women then men) is only a surprise because of the numbers of female ministers. Most people expected political correctness (50%) in all parties except the Greens and that's what happened with the Conservatives and the Swedish-Peoples party. The Greens as expected voted in 2 women [0 men] (to my relief as their women are better than their men) but then rather than the 4/4 split the PM had been suggesting for the Center party, his list (5 women; 3 men including himself and big-head) was topsy-turvy too so now the Cabinet has 12 women and 8 men (although to no-one's surprise the men get the very top posts PM; Foreign Minister; Finance Minister; Super Minister (Labour+Interior(?)).

Meanwhile it's already been announced that one of the new female ministers will be going on maternity leave in a few months (just as she spent several months off during the previous 4-yr government). She's one of the stars of the Center party and has been moved from the Foreign Trade post (that she did well) so the Environment Minister post which the PM is said to regard as an important one these days (it never was before). If it's that important why give it to someone who's going to take time out in a couple of months ? (or is that just the old MCP in me speaking?).

P.S. I suppose we can all be grateful that Kaukko Juhantalo wasn't re-elected otherwise given the Väärynen thing the PM would no doubt have given him a minister job too. (For newcomers to the Finnish political scene, said Juhantalo was forced to leave the parliament because of a scandal involving his time as a minister and connected to loans for a bank and bank loans for his own company [I'm not saying any more). After it took well over a year for the process of running this expulsion from parliament through channels and he finally left, the voters of his constituency virtually immediately voted him in again at the following election and so we saw him (on TV) wandering around in the parliament as if nothing had ever happened. Really really sickening but would have been beaten by him becoming minister again. The PM is obviously capable of completely stupid choices (Väärynen) so we can be thankful that even Juhantalo's voters finally decided to pull the plug just in time.)