elections in finland are different to those in ireland. i cant vote here for parliamentary elections as i am not a citizen, so i didnt take too much time to look into the mechanics of the elections last time around (march 2003). however, the general atmosphere surrounding them was very much different from those in ireland.

in ireland, almost every single telephone pole in the country has posters on it for months before the election. most have smiley happy politicians promising the world, sometimes for referendums they can get a little ugly (previous referendums on abortion and divorce being classic examples). two laws were passed that changed irish elections slightly and subtly. the first one was that no canvassing could occur within a certain distance from the polling station, so no more party faithful harassing you just outside the door of the building. the second one was the introduction of laws governing the erection of posters. before the law, any poster could be put up, and usually it would stay for a few months after the election (funnily enough the winners would tend to leave them longer than the shamed losers). the new law said something along the lines that the posters had the have a notice on them stating who funded them and contact details, also the posters had to be taken down within a certain time frame after the elections. but still the greater part of the madness remains. posters everywhere.

another great thing about elections in ireland, is that the pr system is used: proportional representation. this means that the vote counting is incredibly complex and full of twists and turns. every constituency has a between three and five seats, as opposed to the (for example) english system where its 1 seat only. anyway, the last election in ireland i had my vote taken away from me because i never changed my address on the registration list, and i didnt get a letter asking to confirm my details, so my name was struck off (even though i had voted on previous elections no problem), so the last election i sat it out. however, the day after the election i was at home in limerick and i got lots of food, a comfy place on the sofa and i watched the counting process on television for hours.

this counting day is the only day that irish politicians are even remotely honest. the difference between what the say that day with what they had said the previous day (polling day) and the following days (when the government forming tussles begin) is amazing. they are honest and pretty humble. it can be nine or ten counts before all the seats are given. all the political parties have their own people on the ground (tallymen i think is the name) whose job it is is to lean over the barrier and count the votes as they are being counted and to give word back before each count is announced (which is around ten times per constituency). i’ll miss them days.

finnish elections are a lot more ordered in comparison. i didnt remember seeing any posters last year for the election. trams and buses had a lot of advertising, but it was strange. each party would have several people you could vote for (similar to the irish system), but they had a more varied choice. you could vote for more senior people, slightly less experienced people ……… all the way down to the early twenties person standing for election the first time. some of these people had dreadlocks and were being put forward by the main parties, something that would never happen in ireland. the only young people who went up for election in ireland tended to be the children of dead dáil (parliament) members. these advertisements were there just to show the faces and names. in public spaces then around the city they had boardings erected where each of the parties would affix a small little manifesto or outline of their policies and a list of their candidates. no need for the widespread postering like was evident in ireland.

anyway, whats the point to all this you may ask, well here it is: european elections are coming up on june 13th, and i being a european union citizen can vote!. hurray. so if i get the camera i want, expect some silly pics of me voting.

update: i posted this, then took it down again, i went on a bit of a posting spree during the week, so i decided to hold off on this one for a while. anyway, i was just watching a bbc news report about posters in the irish elections and they interviewed someone from dublin city council who said that there is a limit of two posters per lampost and some streets should be kept poster free (the most famous of which is dublins main shopping street, grafton street). although the reporter on that bbc report did say that he counted 60 posters on one street (it looked like the street outside the irish parliment building).

another poster story here: ireland.com story