On a more serious note - is the general consensus that PS are losing so much because of the fact that Soini et al. got nothing done in government, because Halla-aho steered the party so much to the right, or both?
Definitely the first. The support started to dive in the fall of 2015 when 30,000 asylum seekers walked to Finland across the Swedish border and the government had Finnish soldiers literally carry their bags for them.I followed the developments of this time closely and I'm fairly certain it wasn't actually this - PS took a deep dive at the time when the labor law drama of late 2015 happened and particularly due to the "pakkolaki" affair and the subsequent union demonstration. The refugee situation hit Finland a big later, but PS had already taken a nosedive at this point, losing 5 % of their vote in the September 2015 poll and SDP gaining roughly the equivalent amount - it's pretty clear that the government going after the unions did this.
