On the Finnish Local elections

(Yerevan / Freiburg) As the first reports of the results of the Finnish Municipal elections have reached me, some of them by Facebook, some by sms others by phone, it has become clear. Some amitious youth councilors, who ran can now be called councilors. My heartfelt congratulations for Henri Haaksiala,  Ilkka Sasi, and Jerry Träskelin.  Just to name a few.

I’m very glad for them, being in the city council of your home town is a great experience, I have never learned so much and had the ability to work with so many dedicated people as when I was in the city council of the city of Freiburg.

Others were not so lucky, the voters have choose to give them back their freedom. It is difficult in this system of elections, that often disadvantages against people who have not yet a name or a fancy job title to get elected.They can now return back to a normal life. From my personal experience I know that you also make a lot of scarifies when you are in the city council and try to do go work.

Why you should vote for youth councillors

I’m not a Finn. But I travelled that miraculous northern country for more than 10 times now. I’ve been to the Cities of Helsinki, Pori, Kuopio, Tampere, Turku, Rahe, Lahti, Jyväskylä and certainly a couple others I do not remember right now.

But in all my travels I have always met, politically active, motivated, bright and hard-working youth. They were all members of youth a youth councils or former members. Some even got involved in the umbrella organization of youth councils in Finnland, nuva ry.

Sini Korpinen
Sini Korpinen, has a very innovative political campaign

Now some of them like Santeri Lohi, Sini Korpinen, Jenni Similä, Sampsa Aslak Pietilä, Lauri Tarkiainen, Johanna Tahlo, Henri Haaksiala are running for city council.

As a foreigner I will not tell anyone how and what to vote, but I ask you to consider that people being involved in youth council work, have a lot of competencies that will help them with their further political work. Such as the ability to speak, insight into political matters, know-how on how to work with a public administration, endurance and many others.

Most likely they will have more knowledge and political skills then many adults. Also the inexperience argument can not be held against them.