Liisa Taskinen has been elected as the new SKP chairperson

The Communist Party of Finland’s National Congress, 11-12 June, elected new officials. Retired senior medical officer Liisa Taskinen from Kotka was elected as the party’s new chairperson. Taskinen, who has previously served as vice-chair of the party, says that humanity is facing great and urgent tasks.

– The climate and environmental crisis requires immediate, major decisions and solutions that the real decision-makers in the current system are unwilling to make. Fossil-fuel capitalism and the arms industry are clinging on to their position and seeking to increase their profits at the expense of the climate, the environment and ordinary people.

Taskinen believes there has been enough time to make good decisions, but this has not happened.

– Bourgeois democracy has shown that it prefers to listen to the backers of big business rather than the needs of civil society and nature.

The new SKP chairperson believes that it will take mass action to defend people’s rights.

– What is happening in Finland and in the world is an attack by the right and big business on organised labour and the trade union movement. The Communist Party is the only registered political party in Finland to challenge the capitalist mode of production that is coming to an end and is destroying our planet.

– We call on all those who want real decisions to halt and stop global warming, to preserve and restore environmental diversity, to join the common front. A common front is also needed to defend people’s right to organise and fight for better working conditions, wages and a welfare state won through workers’ struggles.

Every member’s contribution is needed

The party also gained a new vice-chairman, with the election of Jiri Mäntysalo from Vantaa, who was previously chairperson of the Communist Youth. Mervi Grönfors from Tampere will continue as vice-chair and Tiina Sandberg from Helsinki will continue as general secretary.

34 members were elected to the SKP Central Committee, 13 of them new, and 11 deputy members, 7 of them new.

Liisa Taskinen said that the party needs the contribution of each member in its daily work.

– All work for a common cause is valuable and important. Hopefully everyone will have the opportunity to do what they feel they can and want to do.

A new party programme and amendments to the party’s rules were also adopted at the SKP congress. Political documents were adopted titled: “The environmental crisis requires urgent solutions”, “A new dawn for the SKP”, “The world needs peace and peace needs its builders”, and “Youth – visible, included and making a difference”. The meeting debated11 resolutions and adopted a position paper on “Getting wages and working conditions right through the joint efforts of the labour movement”.