---
title: "Two New Right-Wing MPs | Onni Rostila, Tere Sammallahti | Neuvottelija 187"
titleOriginal: "Oikeistokansanedustajat | Onni Rostila Tere Sammallahti | Neuvottelija 187"
episodeNumber: "187"
guest: "Onni Rostila, Tere Sammallahti"
datePublished: 2023-04-08
duration: "16:32"
youtube: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxL20NT92AI"
originalLanguage: "fi"
topics: ["free_speech_society","leadership_governance"]
subtitleMethod: "none"
provenance: "Owner page assembled from YouTube metadata, the neuvottelija.fi episode record and a MacWhisper transcription of the Finnish audio. The chapter marks are the publisher's own list as released with the video, each verified to fall within ten seconds of a real transcript cue. No English caption track was produced, so no transcript is published here. Both guests are regulars on the host's channels, and the summary notes where their claims about the channels' influence on the result are their own assessment rather than measurement."
fiCanonical: "https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/276-oikeistokansanedustajat-onni-rostila-tere-sammallahti-neuvot"
canonical: https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep187-oikeistokansanedustajat-rostila-sammallahti/
---
# Two New Right-Wing MPs | Onni Rostila, Tere Sammallahti | Neuvottelija 187

English subtitles are not available on this page. This is an episode summary, not a curated transcript.

## Chapters

- [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxL20NT92AI&t=0s) Onni Rostila (Finns Party, Uusimaa) and Tere Sammallahti (National Coalition, Uusimaa) elected to parliament
- [00:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxL20NT92AI&t=30s) Parliament's saunas, gym and high ceilings
- [01:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxL20NT92AI&t=61s) Could both end up in the same government? Viewers' preferred coalitions
- [03:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxL20NT92AI&t=210s) The battle for Uusimaa: Rostila fifth on the Finns Party list and safe on advance votes
- [05:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxL20NT92AI&t=310s) The Rostila and Sammallahti cluster, and what the channels contributed
- [06:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxL20NT92AI&t=360s) Sammallahti tenth on the National Coalition list, after a contest with Fagerström and Lohikoski
- [07:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxL20NT92AI&t=470s) The strongest National Coalition list ever, and a risen threshold in Uusimaa
- [08:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxL20NT92AI&t=520s) The Finns Party list, the rise of the market right, and what Riikka Purra meant
- [10:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxL20NT92AI&t=640s) The trade unions' questionable campaign
- [12:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxL20NT92AI&t=770s) Broad trends: a clear win for the right, and the difficulties of the red-green bloc and the Centre
- [15:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxL20NT92AI&t=950s) Negotiating power is needed

## A note on reading this

A short congratulatory episode in which two repeat guests of the channel discuss their own
elections, recorded the day after the result. Both are acquaintances of the interviewer and
regulars on the show. Government talk here is speculation, and claims about the channels'
influence on the outcome are the speakers' own assessment rather than measurement.

## Summary

**Onni Rostila** (Finns Party) and **Tere Sammallahti** (National Coalition), both just
elected from Uusimaa, came on the day after Finland's April 2023 result.

**The arithmetic is what lasts.** The National Coalition's threshold for a seat in Uusimaa
rose from about 3,400 votes in 2019 to 5,200 — because an unusually strong list spread its
votes evenly. Sammallahti came tenth, fifty votes ahead of the previous term's last
entrant. Rostila was fifth on the Finns Party list and safe on advance votes, passing 5,000
as a first-time candidate. For scale, a previous guest of the show polled about 4,500 in
Helsinki and was not elected.

**Rostila's sharpest point is about his own party.** Riikka Purra topped the personal vote,
but every sitting Finns Party MP in Uusimaa lost thousands of votes: a leader strong enough
to dominate the debates pulls votes within the list as well as into the party. That is why
he regards a first-timer's 5,000 as a strong result in those conditions. Sammallahti
describes the mirror image on his own side, where even distribution raised the threshold
but yielded more seats.

**Election night from the inside** is the most practical passage: a contest with one
candidate who pulls away, then the question of whether the party total reaches a tenth or
eleventh seat, then the geography of timing — Vantaa and the surrounding municipalities are
counted before Espoo, so the left's lead looked larger than it was for hours.

**On government**, both hope for a right-wing coalition. Sammallahti's criticism of the
Centre is procedural, that its leader placed it in opposition before the parliamentary
group had met. Rostila's counterweight is strategic: a Centre in opposition opens the way
to Coalition–Finns Party governments later without kingmaker parties, though on these
numbers that would still need two more parties and a thin margin.

Both also note that the splinter parties formed out of the Finns Party won no seats, and
agree on where votes remain available: movement between the Coalition and the Finns Party
has largely happened already, and the Centre is where the ground still is.

## Watch

The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel:
[Oikeistokansanedustajat | Onni Rostila Tere Sammallahti | Neuvottelija 187](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxL20NT92AI).
A Finnish edition of this episode is published at
[www.neuvottelija.fi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/276-oikeistokansanedustajat-onni-rostila-tere-sammallahti-neuvot).

---

Cite as: Sami Miettinen, Neuvottelija — Two New Right-Wing MPs | Onni Rostila, Tere Sammallahti | Neuvottelija 187, https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep187-oikeistokansanedustajat-rostila-sammallahti/, 2023-04-08. For quotes include episode 187 and timestamp.
