Jussi Kristian Halla-aho (born 27 April 1971) is a Finnish politician, currently serving as the Speaker of the Parliament of Finland since 2023. Halla-aho has served as a member of the Parliament of Finland from 2011 to 2014 and again since 2019, and as the leader of the Finns Party from 10 June 2017"Jussi Halla-aho elected Finns Party leader". Yle News. 10 June 2017 to 14 August 2021. Previously, between 2014 and 2019, he was a member of the European Parliament, where he was part of the Identity and Democracy group.Mäkinen, Esa: What does Jussi Halla-aho really want? , Helsingin Sanomat – International Edition Metro, 30.11.2008. Sauvala, Milka: Maahanmuuttokriitikko perussuomalaisten äänikuningas Helsingissä , Helsingin Sanomat, 26.10.2008. Viljanmaa, Toni: Perussuomalaiset saivat parikymmentä maahanmuuttokriitikkoa valtuustoihin , Satakunnan Kansa 27.10.2008.
Halla-aho has a PhD in Slavic Studies. Before entering national politics, he was best known for criticising multiculturalism and Finland's immigration policies in his online blog, Scripta. He was first elected to the Helsinki City Council in 2008 and to the Finnish parliament in 2011. In 2014 he was elected to the European Parliament. He was elected leader of the Finns Party in the summer of 2017, defeating Sampo Terho, after which the majority of the party's MPs seceded in protest and formed a new party. In spite of this, Halla-aho led the Finns Party to success in the 2019 election: it recovered all of its lost seats, becoming the second-largest party in parliament (after the Social Democratic Party), and Halla-aho won the largest share of personal votes in the country.
Halla-aho has served as Speaker of Parliament since 21 June 2023. In 2024, he ran for President of Finland.
Early life
Halla-aho grew up in Tampere and lived there 24 years. His mother was from Alajärvi.Rautio, Pirjo: Jussi Halla-ahon juurilla, Pohjalainen, 22.11.2008 During the 1980s he travelled to the Soviet Union with his father, who was a bus driver. The trip was the spark for his anti-leftist convictions. When Halla-aho was young, he worked as a waiter. When conscripted, instead of military service he chose civilian service. He later expressed regret at his decision, calling the choice a "stupid political protest", and voicing support for the present conscription system.Maria Pettersson: Jussi Halla-aho, City-lehti 1/2009
Education
After high school, Halla-aho enrolled in Pirkanmaa Hotel and Restaurant Institute, where he obtained a vocational diploma to become a restaurant waiter. From 1995 to 2000, he was enrolled in the University of Helsinki, studying Russian, Croatian, Polish and Ukrainian, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Old Persian, Old Irish and Old English. Awarded a MA in 2000, in 2006 he obtained his Ph.D,Jussi Halla-aho , Jussi Halla-aho's personal homepage with a dissertation on historical nominal morphology of Old Church Slavonic.Problems of Proto-Slavic Historical Nominal Morphology: On the Basis of Old Church Slavic, Slavistik-Portal, 2006 He has published one article in an academic journal. After graduation, he left academia and worked on a part-time basis supported by short-term academic grants.
Political career
Electoral results Halla-aho was elected a member of Helsinki City Council in the 2008 municipal elections as a candidate of the Finns Party (previously known as True Finns),Valitut ehdokkaat - Helsinki, Kunnallisvaalit 2008 , Ministry of Justice, Finland. although he was not a member of the party until 2010. In the 2008 elections, he was the 18th most popular candidate in the entire countryKoko maa – Ääniharavat, Vaalit 2008 tulospalvelu, 27.10.2008, YLE. and the second most popular candidate of the Finns Party after the party leader Timo Soini.Perussuomalaisten Halla-ahosta rikostutkinta, MTV3-STT 12.12.2008. Halla-aho won the largest number of personal votes for the party in Helsinki.Great ideological disparity among True Finns in Helsinki region, Helsingin Sanomat - International Edition - Metro
Halla-aho was elected to parliament in 2011. His vote share was the sixth highest in the country and the second highest within his party. In the parliament he was made chairman of the Administration Committee, which deals with immigration affairs among other matters. However, in the summer of 2012 Halla-aho resigned from the position of committee chairman, while staying as a member of the committee. Halla-aho was re-elected to the Helsinki City Council in 2012, being the third most popular candidate nationwide.
Halla-aho was elected to the European Parliament in 2014. He was the second most popular candidate in the election with 80,772 votes. He sits in the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR). He is a member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, and a substitute member of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection.European Parliament: Jussi HALLA-AHO, accessed 7 July 2014.
In 2017, Halla-aho announced he would run for the party chair in the Finns Party leadership election, as the long-time leader of the party Timo Soini decided not to seek another term. During the campaign, Halla-aho and Sampo Terho emerged as the leading candidates, according to opinion polls. Halla-aho emerged victorious in the party conference in Jyväskylä on 10 June, winning a majority of delegates in the first round, and was officially nominated as the Leader of the Finns Party. His selection resulted in a political crisis in Finland, as the leaders of the two other governing coalition parties, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä of Centre and Finance Minister Petteri Orpo of the NCP, stated they would not co-operate with the Finns Party led by Halla-aho. The two leaders argued that their decision was based on value differences between them and Halla-aho's policies, and that the Sipilä Cabinet would duly be dissolved. On 13 June, however, twenty Finns MPs, including former leader Soini, broke away from the parliamentary group and founded New Alternative. Sipilä announced that his cabinet would continue working with New Alternative (later called Blue Reform), thus securing a parliamentary majority, and leaving the remaining Finns MPs in opposition.
Halla-aho led the remainder of the party into the 2019 parliamentary election, gaining one new seat in comparison to the 2015 elections, while none of the Blue Reform candidates got elected. Halla-aho did personally gain the most votes in the whole country and broke the record for most personal votes in Helsinki constituency.
In June 2021, Halla-aho informed that he is not running for re-election as chairman of party, but will continue in parliament and municipality.
Speaker of the Parliament In the 2023 parliamentary election, Halla-aho was re-elected with 22,081 votes. In June 2023, he was elected as the Speaker of the Parliament.
In July 2023, Halla-aho announced his candidacy for the 2024 Finnish presidential election. In the election, he placed third with 18.99% of the total vote count and failed to advance to the second round of voting.
On 25 November 2023 Halla-aho addressed the Verkhovna Rada in Ukrainian on the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor.
On 3 April 2024, he accompanied President of Finland, Alexander Stubb, on a visit to Ukraine, meeting President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv.
Parliamentary elections
Year Constituency Votes Percentage Result 2007 Helsinki 2,215 0.70% Not elected 2011 Helsinki 15,074 4.33% Elected 2019 Helsinki 30,596 7.87% Elected 2023 Helsinki 22,081 5.78% Elected
Municipal elections
Year Municipality Votes Percentage Result 2008 Helsinki 2,977 1.07% Elected 2012 Helsinki 6,034 2.11% Elected 2017 Helsinki 5,668 1.74% Elected 2021 Helsinki 18,978 5.67% Elected
European Parliament elections
Year Constituency Votes Percentage Result 2014 Finland 80,772 4.67% Elected
Political interests Halla-aho has stated that he became politically active because he finds the Finnish immigration policy a problemRuissalo, Pekka: Timo Soini ja Jussi Halla-aho närkästyivät rasismisyytöksistä, Aamulehti 21.10.2008 and believes that Europe is heading towards a catastrophe because of massive immigration.Poikkeustapaukset, Helsingin Sanomat, 2.3.2007. Halla-aho voices support for the welfare state, and places himself on the left side of the political spectrum, in matters of economic policy. Still, he maintains that, all sides taken into account, if forced to choose between left-wing and right-wing politics he would choose the right-wing.Pettersson, Maria: Jussi Halla-aho, City, nro 1/2009
Halla-aho maintains a blog titled Scripta which states that it treats issues such as "immigration, multiculturalism, tolerance, racism, freedom of speech and political correctness".Halla-aho, Jussi: Johdanto uudelle lukijalle, Scripta. His blog had between 3,000 and 6,000 readers a day in 2008,Jussi, Noora: Yllätysvoitot perustuivat blogeihin , Vihreä Lanka, 29.10.2008. which made him the best known political blogger in Finland according to the newspaper Aamulehti.Viljanmaa, Toni: Perussuomalaiset | Hallan vaara , Aamulehti, 5.12.2008.
In a 2007 interview with Helsingin Sanomat Halla-aho explained his opposition to multiculturalism in the following way:
In Finland the starting point [of the conversation] is that multiculturalism is a richness in itself. This is an untenable claim. When rival value systems and codes of conduct are accepted in a society, it leads automatically to conflicts. Finland is no exception. It is mainly the attributes of the Muslim cultures, that make the integration of these groups into Finland impossible, as long as they hold on to their special characteristics and as long as the society encourages them to wrap themselves in this otherness. It creates a spiral of social exclusion and ethnic ghettoisation.In Finnish: "Suomessa on lähtökohtana, että monikulttuurisuus itsessään on rikkaus. Tämä on perustelematon väite. Kun yhteiskunnassa hyväksytään kilpailevia arvojärjestelmiä ja käyttäytymiskoodeja, se johtaa automaattisesti konflikteihin. Suomi ei ole poikkeus. Lähinnä muslimikulttuurien piirteet tekevät näiden ryhmien sopeutumisen Suomeen mahdottomaksi niin kauan kuin ne pitävät kiinni erityispiirteistään ja yhteiskunta rohkaisee heitä kääriytymään tähän erilaisuuteen. Se luo syrjäytymisen ja etnisen gettoutumisen kierteen." Poikkeustapaukset, Helsingin Sanomat, 2.3.2007
Halla-aho has demanded that positive discrimination and what he calls privileges due to culture or nationality should not be allowed. Referring to his own works, he has affirmed that criticising "totalitarian fascist ideologies like political Islam" should not be considered racism and that facts cannot be criminalised.Toisinajattelijana Suomessa – Policyn haastattelussa Jussi Halla-aho Policy 1/2008, p. 16, Helsingin yliopiston Valtio-opin Opiskelijat ry. (PDF) According to Halla-aho, immigration is a taboo in Finland.B-Studion perjantaivieras: Jussi Halla-aho Nelonen, 19.12.2008 (Video) He has disclosed that he has received death threats because of his web columns.
Halla-aho has been accused of racism by academics and members of the Finnish government, and has been connected to the counter-jihad movement, having previously been a contributor to the blog Gates of Vienna. He denies xenophobia allegations against him and maintains that he is simply “critical of immigration”, and that he has supporters among immigrants, as well.