After the Finnish parliamentary elections, the winner’s honeymoon went terribly wrong. In a strange election aftermath, an Iraqgate scandal brought down the first female prime minister of the country, Ms Anneli Jäätteenmäki in 63 days. Her mistake was to use confidential information about talks between her political opponent, former prime minister Lipponen and George W. Bush, in her election campaign. More than anything, this raises the question about the new role of the United States increasingly gaining mass as a political tool in the domestic politics of European countries, writes Jan-Erik Andelin.
Jan-Erik Andelin
(b.1962) is a journalist and editor-in-chief of Ny Tid, a Swedish-language weekly based in Helsinki.
