We publish a joint statement published on Instagram @antiimperialistinenkollektiivi.
Anti-imperialists of the world, unite!
DO NOT VOTE, DO NOT PARTICIPATE IN THE ELECTORAL FARCE!
The rulers and the old parties have once again gathered for the ”celebration of democracy” in the form of municipal and regional elections. These elections are rotten to the core, they are democracy only for the rich, but dictatorship against the people.
The Finnish bourgeoisie is using these elections to justify the anti-people politics of the next four years. Healthcare will get even worse. Public transportation will get even more expensive. Living will get even more expensive. These are some of the things that we will experience once again in the next four years, irregardless of the outcome of the elections.
Cuts are done under the pretext of ”adaptation of the public economy”, which is only a euphemism for that the bourgoisie wants more money. It needs more money to satisfy its bottomless greed and to compete with the fat-cats of other countries. When the rich have suffered cuts? When have they compromised a tiny bit of their profits? The poor and even the middle-income are being robbed all the time.
More and more cuts will also be argued with the needs of militarism. The government military spending will be doubled in the near future. This will again be financed from the wallet of the people. The tiny bit of the ”welfare state” there still is, will be melted into raw material of the arms factories. And not a single parliamentary party is talking about this.
All of this is just for the benefit of the Finnish bourgeoisie in the sharpening international competition among the rich countries. They fight about how much they get to exploit the poor countries, where the living conditions do not correspond this century. That is where our money goes – to finance Finnish imperialism!
Elections are portrayed as a ”celebration of democracy”, but the people has been left outside of this democracy. It is said that there is an equal right to vote, but when was the last time that the ballot has provided any change?
Majority of the people knows that the elections are just deception exercised by the rich. In Finland’s first regional elections in 2022, the people presented their protest in a strong voice: less than 50% voted. Abstention denies the justification of the elections and the political system. The less vote, the better.
Instead of the current bourgeois order and its elections, we need socialism, in which the economy is not driven by the rise of profits, but the rise of standard of living. Historical experiences of socialism – mainly the Soviet Union (1917–1956) and China (1949–1976) – have meant gigantic rise in the standard of living for the people. They have been systems, where the voice of a common people is heard, and not drowned in the ballot box. That’s the economy and that’s the democracy we need!
Socialism is a revolutionary task, which cannot be achieved through the elections, because the rich will never let go of their power voluntarily. That is why we say:
Elections, no! Revolution, yes!
March 2025
Anti-imperialist Collective (Tampere)
Anti-imperialists – Helsinki
Lumon lukio anti-imperialists
