The new leader of Finland’s Social Democratic Party (SDP) Antti Lindtman, who succeeded the party’s parliamentary group chair, is embroiled in a scandal only 2 days after taking the helm of the party.
The successor to Sanna Marin as the leader of Finland’s Socialist Party has caused a furore over photos from his past, as in one of them he appears naked holding a pistol next to other naked men, some of whom make the Nazi salute, while in the second one, an unknown woman has bent over with her face in front of his crotch and he is celebrating.
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“The ugly past of Finland’s Socialist leaders” comments German newspaper Bild, recalling that Sanna Marin, once the world’s youngest prime minister, was also “outed” by videos of parties in which, among other things, she had an intimate one-on-one with a singer.
In the case of 41-year-old Lindtman, the controversy was caused by photos that came to light taken when he was 18 years old, in the first of which the new leader of the Finnish Socialists poses next to four other men. All of them are wearing Santa hats and full-face hoods with two of them holding guns and two others doing the Nazi salute.
After the photos were posted on social media in early July, Lindtman himself admitted to being one of the five youths, specifically the one in the top left of the photo. “I’m the one holding a plastic gun in my hands,” he told the newspaper Italehti on July 5, clarifying that it all happened at a classmate’s Christmas party as a “thank you” to all those who helped film a short film in which he participated.
And specifically about the Nazi salutes, Lindtman told the same newspaper that “they obviously went too far with this move. I was never a Nazi supporter, and I’m not one now. But even so, I should not be with neo-Nazis because of my ideology.”
