The newspapers on Thursday focus on the new government programme announced on Wednesday. There is plenty to chew on, with four new ministers from the Finns Party, and that's where Ilta-Sanomat chose to focus. The paper profiled Jari Lindström, Timo Soini, Hanna Mäntylä and Jussi Niinistö, the party's new ministers, noting that they are all close to Soini.
Jari Lindström has the best backstory. He's a former shop steward who was made redundant in 2006 after 22 years at Voikkaa paper mill, and is the incoming Justice and Employment minister.
"I don't have to wonder what it feels like to be unemployed," Lindström told IS.
He may have to read up on Finland's commitments to human rights, as the paper also uncovered a 2011 survey in which he said he would support the death penalty.
Soini's 'tough choice'
The big surprise on Wednesday was that Timo Soini chose the Foreign Minister's post rather than the Finance Minister portfolio that normally goes to the second biggest party. He explained this decision in several ways, with HS focusing on his 'passion' for foreign policy, and Iltalehti quoting his statement that he felt he'd be better at foreign policy.
IL also noted that he'd called his wife to mull over the decision before he finally plumped for the Foreign Minister's job.
"I won't say anything about that conversation except that I've got an amazing wife," said Soini.
Yle political correspondent Pekka Ervasti, meanwhile, saw an added advantage: When Finance Minister Stubb is defending his long list of cuts in parliament, nine times out of ten Foreign Minister Soini can follow events from the other side of the world without getting his hands dirty.
Broken promises
IS also followed the outrage on social media as students looked into the 600 million euros of cuts to the education budget. These come in stark contrast to election promises from both Alexander Stubb and Juha Sipilä that education would not be cut.
Many of those outraged students and academics were also chewing on comments from the new Education Minister Sanni Grahn-Laasonen, who said on 1 May that education funding should not be reduced.
"We have to make a value choice," Grahn-Laasonen had said in her May Day speech delivered in Pori and Lahti. "The best investment in the future is to put money in children and young people's education."
She's now responsible for delivering a 600 million euro reduction the education budget.
Universities' autonomy
There was another problem with the new government's education plan: higher education institutions in Finland are autonomous, and the government cannot introduce a third semester or change their admissions systems as planned.
So says Professor Matti Wiberg, whose Helsingin Sanomat column references Swedish monarchs and Russian czars as previous guarantors of this academic freedom.
Families feel the cuts
Hesari also went to meet a Helsinki family to ask how they feel about the cuts planned for families. These are many and varied, with daycare groups set to grow, daycare fees to rise and mortgage interest tax relief to fall.
The family HS found was most worried about cuts to healthcare and education, believeing that they would store up problems for the future, although they acknowledged that the overall package would leave them with less disposable income.
Fifa in crisis--will Finland vote Blatter?
In much of the rest of the world, Wednesday's big story was the arrest at a five-star Zurich hotel of nine senior Fifa executives and four employees of marketing firms closely linked to the international football body. They're suspected of bribery and corruption relating to tournaments in Central and South America and will be deported to the United States to face trial.
There's also a separate Swiss investigation into the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. All this comes just two days before Fifa is due to vote to elect a new president, with the incumbent Sepp Blatter the clear front-runner.
Finland's FA Chairman Pertti Alaja, Vice-chair Markku Lehtola and General Secretary Marco Casagrande are in Zurich for the congress, and so the obvious question is: are they going to vote for Blatter, given the huge concerns over suspected corruption in his organisation? Helsingin Sanomat notes Alaja has previously planned to vote that way, saying that Blatter has done 'good work', but wonders if that might change. They could not get an answer from Finnish football's man in Switzerland.
