Lapland Centre selects eight candidates and rejects member vote

The Centre Party’s Lapland district selected eight parliamentary election candidates on Sunday, rejecting calls for a member ballot. Yle reported that Laura Lakso and Matti Torvinen were left off the list after a heated meeting in Rovaniemi.

Ten people had sought a place on the list, but the Lapland district had eight seats to fill. The district board proposed eight candidates and recommended against holding a member ballot.

At the three-and-a-half-hour meeting, members voted three times on how to decide the nominations. A proposal for a member ballot was defeated 38–17. A separate proposal to choose the candidates through a vote at the meeting lost 32–23. The meeting then approved the board’s proposed list by the same margin.

Lakso, a former chair of the Pelkosenniemi municipal board, and Torvinen, a lawyer from Kemijärvi who previously worked with the Finns Party, were excluded.

Torvinen said he believed the party had retaliated against him for assisting young women politicians in Sodankylä and Pelkosenniemi. He also said internal problems in local party organisations had played a part.

District chair Susanna Viitala denied that Torvinen’s political past or the situation in Pelkosenniemi had affected the decision. She said she believed members had considered the overall picture. Lakso and Torvinen declined to comment on whether criminal complaints made in Pelkosenniemi had influenced the matter, citing ongoing proceedings.

The Centre Party can nominate 14 parliamentary candidates from Lapland. The Peräpohjola district selected its six candidates on Saturday.