The Finns Party has withdrawn support for a municipal election candidate found to have been convicted of aggravated sexual abuse of child and other charges.
On Friday the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported that Satakunta District Court sentenced Raimo Helenius to 1 year and 10 months' probation in 2017.
Altogether the paper found five local candidates who had been convicted of sex crimes, four of them involving children. Two of the candidates represent the Finns Party, with one each from the National Coalition Party and the Centre Party.
Also on Friday the newsmagazine Suomen Kuvalehti reported that a Green Party municipal election candidate in Tampere was suspected of involvement in sex trafficking.
Yle is publishing Helenius's name due to the societal significance of the matter. Yle has not been able to reach him for comment on the matter.
In an interview with the Jyväskylä newspaper Keskisuomalainen, Helenius denied having committed the acts for which he was convicted. He added that he would withdraw his candidacy, although that is no longer technically possible since voting has begun.
Helenius is a candidate for the local council in Kannonkoski, a town of 1,300 located about 100 km north of Jyväskylä.
Kataja "baffled"
Pekka Kataja, election manager of the nationalist Finns Party in Central Finland, told Yle he was baffled by the case. Kataja said that the party was unaware of the conviction, although it attempts to find out as much as possible about the background of each aspiring candidate. Candidates must also sign a document confirming that they have no criminal convictions or pending criminal proceedings.
According to Kataja, the party was deceived.
"I'm baffled that someone with such a background and conviction would seek to become a candidate. He was told clearly that if there was anything dodgy in his background, it would 100 percent certainly come out in the media. This goes against any common sense," said Kataja.
Jyrki Niittymaa, chair of the Central Finland District of Finns Party, also expressed surprise. Reached at a party council meeting, Niittymaa conceded that it is possible to become a municipal election candidate by lying.
"We always do our best to check candidates' backgrounds, but there seems to be room for improvement. This system is unlikely to ever be completely watertight in any party," Niittymaa told Yle.
Candidate to be removed from future ads
According to Kataja, Helenius's name and picture will be removed from future advertising, and will be covered up on outdoor posters, which are displayed on official racks.
A candidacy can however no longer be withdrawn after the lists are published. Advance voting is already underway.
According to Kataja, keeping a criminal conviction secret is rare. In general, candidates are well enough known locally that such things cannot be hidden, he said. He recalled only one such case since he began the party's regional election official in 2008.
"In the 2012 election, a person with a recent suspended sentence was nominated. The case came to light before the outdoor ads were printed, so we were able to remove the candidate from the signs," he said.
Advance voting began on Wednesday for the June 13 local elections, with the period extended to two weeks for the first time. As of Friday evening, 7.6 percent of eligible voters had cast ballots.
Kataja was the target of an attempted assassination last summer, a case which remains unsolved.