'Nightmare called multiculturalism'. A Case study of populist anti-immigration party's crisis communication after entering a coalition government

Like many other European nationalist-populist, anti-immigration parties, the Finn's Party have repeatedly been under media scrutiny for their representatives' allegedly racist statements. After the party joined a coalition government in 2015, criticism reached an unprecedented level when MP Olli Immonen wrote a Facebook post about his dream of a “brave nation that will defeat this nightmare called multiculturalism”. Due to mistakes in handling the crisis, racism accusations snowballed and culminated in a 15,000-people-strong anti-racism demonstration in Helsinki. Critically for the party, its coalition partners began to demand answers, and the party's credibility as a coalition partner was imperiled. Using the Immonen case as an example and the party’s previous racism-related publicity crises as background material, this paper discusses shortcomings in the existing body of literature on crisis communication and populist parties' media strategies when applied to Finnish politics. Crisis communication (e.g. Coombs 2012) and image repair theory (e.g. Benoit 2015) focusing on the necessity of ridding negative accusations lack sensitivity when applied to party politics. While discursive damage control, such as categorical divorcing from the xenophobic statements, may be in the interests of a party, it is not always beneficial for an individual politician. In Finland the tradition of consensus politics and multiparty coalition governments means that a populist party wishing to rise to government needs to sustain a moderate level of acceptability in the eyes of other political parties. Furthermore, the electoral system, which forces the voter to choose both between the parties and between the candidates, may affect the way individual politicians choose to communicate in public. Wodak's analysis of the 'right-wing populist perpetuum mobile', by which she refers to parties' intentional and controversial utterances that follow a repeated pattern (Wodak 2013, 32–33; 2015, 19–20), resonates with the Finnish experience. However, this analysis could be strengthened by acknowledging the downsides there are in being stigmatized with racism: the party may become repelled by its coalition partners. While in Finland a party needs to pay attention to its acceptability among other parties, the electoral system encourages single politicians to try to strengthen their individual profiles. That can lead to a conflict of interest between the party entity and such representatives whose voters welcome harsher rhetoric. Therefore, the dynamic described by Wodak may be used by and may benefit, not the party, but an individual politician.