Silvennoinen says via text message that it was a joke. According to him, the mention of tactical voting in the visa broadcast is especially related to the spring parliamentary elections, where it became a big topic of conversation. However, he denies that he urged anyone to vote tactically in Eurovision.
Swedish newspaper The evening paper writes that the reason for Sweden’s zero audience score from Finland could have been hidden by a wit commentator Mikko Silvennoinen in the “sneaky” voting instructions for Finns. They also write about it Swedish newspaper Expressen and news agency TT.
Sweden won Eurovision of flowers with his piece Tattoo. Although the representative of Finland Wrapper fared better than Loreen in the audience votes, Sweden got the second most audience points right after Käärijä. Sweden received public votes from all countries – except Finland.
The Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet now cites Finnish wisdom commentator Silvennoinen’s “cunning” voting instructions as one of the reasons. Aftonbladet believes that Silvennoinen urged – albeit indirectly – Finnish Wiesa fans to vote tactically.
In the magazine’s article, we ponder whether this was the reason why Sweden did not receive a single audience point from Finland.
It is written that Silvennoinen “took advantage of his opportunity and added a tactful but cunning message to the Finns.”
Aftonbladet writes that when presenting the voting instructions to Finns, Silvennoinen quoted from a Wiesu fan from Yle’s Viusuchat: “As an unknown person in Yle’s chat reminds us: vote tactically, it is not forbidden. But voting in Finland is forbidden”.
Both Aftonbladet and Expressen prominently highlighted Finland’s tactical voting in their online publications.
HS asked Silvennoinen for a comment on the Swedish newspaper’s claims. Silvennoinen replied by text message.
“Yes, I read a joke sent by a viewer during the live chat yesterday that you can also vote tactically. I did not mention any country in this context. I didn’t call for a tactical vote. I just told the audience that you can vote tactically,” writes Silvennoinen.
Silvennoinen writes that the mention of tactical voting is particularly related to the parliamentary elections held in the spring, where it became a big topic of conversation.
“Now it’s important to understand this background: the joke from the chat is very funny to me, because the topic happens to be current. In Finland, there has been a lot of talk about tactical voting in the spring parliamentary elections. Exceptionally, many Finns did not vote for their own party in the elections, so that the Basic Finns would not get into the government or even the prime minister’s party. The social democrats benefited from tactical voting in the elections.”
Silvennoinen says in the text message that he is a big fan of Loreen himself, and that he has let his fandom show on his social media accounts for five weeks. He says that he has received feedback, or “foxing” about his fandom.
Swedish Eurovision commentator Edward of Sillén commented to Aftonbladet that there is no rulebook according to which Eurovision should be hosted.
“But I can think that there are unwritten rules. And this is one; in my opinion, a commentator should not urge his listeners to vote tactically,” af Sillén told the Swedish newspaper.
“It is not in accordance with the spirit of wisdom.”
Swedish Melodifestivalen project manager Anders Wistbacka commented via text message to Aftonbladet that Silvennoinen’s plot may have influenced the public votes of Finns for Sweden.
“As far as I understand, there are no rules on how a commenter can express himself. But I know that despite the exciting Finland-Sweden match, our own commentators would not urge the viewers to vote tactically.”
From the wrapper was asked at the press conference held on Sunday, what did he think about the fact that the Finns did not give Loreen any audience points.
“Wow, I didn’t know about that. On the other hand, Finland played into our country’s bag, thank you for that”, answered Käärijä, or Jere Pöyhönen.
According to Käärivi, the rules of the fairs should be changed so that the public’s voice can be heard better. Nowadays, half of the votes come from the jury and half from the audience.