I am a middle-aged data analyst and Green activist in Turku. I am a candidate in the municipal and district elections in 2025.  What makes me better than other candidates? Not all that much. The Greens have an strong list in these elections, and lots of excellent candidates.

However, my unique selling point might be my time frame. I really don’t like selfishness, in politics or anywhere else. To me, it is selfish to try to grab as much as we can today, and ignore the future generations. Unfortunately, a lot of politics is in fact just all about grabbing wherever we can right now.

I have decided to go to the other extreme. I recently took an interesting online quiz which gave me my statistically most probable date of death. It is in November of 2052. So: I want to focus on what Turku looks like in 2055, when I am probably not here to see it.

There is nothing abstract about that. At that point, my children will be solidly middle-aged, and any possible grandchildren could be young adults. Fundamentally, they (and the people around them)  are the reason why I am in politics. Taking this approach means that I have to take a very concrete look at what concretely needs to be done right now.

No one can predict how bad the climate catastrophe will be in 2055, but we will certainly be seeing its early effects. When faced with a paralyzingly difficult situation, the important thing is to not be paralyzed. We need to do what we can. Turku will scrape by even in the terrible new world, as long as we start preparing right now. In the Turku of 2055, people will

• move around, but in an envorinmentally friendly way (we need to invest in mass transit now)
• try to survive in spite of extreme rains (we need to build our city now to be robust against extreme floods)
• want to experience nature firsthand (we need to preserve nature and parks in the city right now)
• try to stay physically healthy (we need to invest in health services now, and the city needs to support everyday exercise now)
• try to stay mentally healthy (see above, plus investments in culture)
• be much multicultural than now (we need to take care of our immigrants)
• want their children to be educated (we need to support schools now)
• need research on how to handle new crises (we need to support universities now)
• innovate new solutions to new problems (we need to ensure that companies are doing well now)

I consider multiculturalism and immigration to be particularly important for our future. Partly it is an economical question: Finland is aging rapidly, and we need immigration in order to have enough working-age people. Partly it is an ethical question: we need to think globally, and that means we cannot close ourselves off from the rest of the world. Partly it is just emotional: I lived overseas between the ages of 7 and 18 and have worked in international companies after that. I quite simply find it highly enjoyable to be around people who are completely different from me.

These are all simply traditional Green values. I was surprised when I realized that switching my focus to what happens after I die doesn’t actually change my political views at all. The Greens are the only party that genuinely thinks many generations ahead. As long as we continue to be that way, good things will happen.

My campaign information is here.  You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, or Bluesky. You can donate to my campaign here: https://bit.ly/jakke2025