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Reminds me of my native Finland in the early 1980s after Urho Kekkonen retired from his 25-year presidency. The successor Mauno Kekkonen started a series of con

Reminds me of my native Finland in the early 1980s after Urho Kekkonen retired from his 25-year presidency. The successor Mauno Kekkonen started a series of constitutional reforms that transferred much of the presidential power to the parliament. The general consensus seems to be that Finland is now much more democratic and less influenced by USSR/Russia. (I don't know anything about Kazakhstan politics so the similarities may be superficial.)

madaxe_again 5y ago
Finland, you had Kekkonen because he was seen as a safe and strong option for standing up to the USSR. Kaz had Nazarbayev for decades because he happened to be the Soviet in charge when the USSR collapsed, and never held a free or fair election. I guess there are similarities in terms of the backdrop against which change comes (the change in threat level presented by the USSR/Russia), but beyond that, I think it superficial. That said, I know little about Finnish politics.
- VictorPath 5y ago
  > Finland, you had Kekkonen because he was seen as a safe and strong option for standing up to the USSR...That said, I know little about Finnish politics. The last statement is correct. For the most part, Kekkonen did whatever the USSR wanted. He was the architect of Finlandization. The USSR was in a totally different state in 1945 than during the Winter War. It could have rolled into Finland at the end of the Nazi funded Continuation War, reinstated as the government the losing side from among the worker parties of the Finnish Civil War, and Finland would have been another Warsaw Pact Comecon country. But the USSR did not. Because Germany and the buffer states between were seen as a possible threat but Finland was not. Finland had no means of standing up to the USSR, and Kekkonen did the opposite.
glaze 5y ago
His successor was Mauno Koivisto.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
They did the same after FDR in the USA to limit presidential term limits. It has become more and more clear that we need the same with more powerful federal positions like speaker of the house, leader of the senate, supreme court, etc. We need new blood every so often. I wish it was across the board but maybe we could start with these top positions and see how it goes. Clearly what we have is not working for the betterment of the general welfare, currently it's only for corporate welfare.
- muro 5y ago
  If you change everything at once, the different branches stop being independent of each other.
  - notfromhere 5y ago
    They already aren't. Party affiliation is what determines opposition/support between the branches, not the branches themselves.

madaxe_again 5y ago

Finland, you had Kekkonen because he was seen as a safe and strong option for standing up to the USSR. Kaz had Nazarbayev for decades because he happened to be the Soviet in charge when the USSR collapsed, and never held a free or fair election. I guess there are similarities in terms of the backdrop against which change comes (the change in threat level presented by the USSR/Russia), but beyond that, I think it superficial. That said, I know little about Finnish politics.

VictorPath 5y ago
> Finland, you had Kekkonen because he was seen as a safe and strong option for standing up to the USSR...That said, I know little about Finnish politics. The last statement is correct. For the most part, Kekkonen did whatever the USSR wanted. He was the architect of Finlandization. The USSR was in a totally different state in 1945 than during the Winter War. It could have rolled into Finland at the end of the Nazi funded Continuation War, reinstated as the government the losing side from among the worker parties of the Finnish Civil War, and Finland would have been another Warsaw Pact Comecon country. But the USSR did not. Because Germany and the buffer states between were seen as a possible threat but Finland was not. Finland had no means of standing up to the USSR, and Kekkonen did the opposite.

glaze 5y ago

His successor was Mauno Koivisto.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

They did the same after FDR in the USA to limit presidential term limits. It has become more and more clear that we need the same with more powerful federal positions like speaker of the house, leader of the senate, supreme court, etc. We need new blood every so often. I wish it was across the board but maybe we could start with these top positions and see how it goes. Clearly what we have is not working for the betterment of the general welfare, currently it's only for corporate welfare.

muro 5y ago
If you change everything at once, the different branches stop being independent of each other.
- notfromhere 5y ago
  They already aren't. Party affiliation is what determines opposition/support between the branches, not the branches themselves.