Movement Now


Movement Now is an economically liberal political movement in Finland. Movement Now was founded by then-National Coalition Party member of parliament Harry "Hjallis" Harkimo and seven other people.

History

On 19 April 2018, member of parliament Harry Harkimo announced that he would resign from his party, the NCP. On 21 April, he announced that he had founded a political movement of his own called Movement Now. The movement had been founded by him and seven others and registered with the one day before Harkimo's resignation from the NCP. The seven founding members are Harkimo, former SDP party secretary Mikael Jungner,, Helene Auramo, Karoliina Kähönen, Sarian Antila, and Tuomas Enbuske.
Harkimo subsequently formed a one-man parliamentary group, the in the Parliament of Finland. On 21 January 2019, an MP of the Blue Reform and former Speaker of the Parliament of Finland Maria Lohela announced that she would leave the Blue Reform in order to join Liike Nyt's parliamentary group. In addition to the Parliament, the movement has gained members in municipalities. The group Parempi Heinola in the city assembly of Heinola joined Liike Nyt. With its eight members out of a total of 43, the movement is the largest in Heinola. A similar association with the Uusi Jämsä group of Jämsä was agreed upon in August 2018. Uusi Jämsä was the third largest group in the city council when joining the movement with its six members.
In the 2019 Finnish parliamentary election, Harkimo was elected to the parliament as the sole representative from Movement Now. 115 candidates stood for election, short of the movement's target of 150. Besides Harkimo, candidates included another founder of the party Auramo, and the former's Mirita Saxberg. Because the movement was not a registered party, each of its candidates had to gather signatures of at least 100 voters to form a. The party used controversial microtargeting in its campaign advertising.
In June 2019, Harkimo announced that the Movement Now would start collecting signed support cards in order to become a registered political party. The Ministry of Justice announced on 14 November 2019 that Movement Now had been registered as a political party.

Political stances

Thirty core principles were agreed upon by party members. Besides these, candidates are not aligned ideologically with the group and are allowed to take independent stances on local issues. Election themes include Baltic Sea clean up and social security for entrepreneurs.

Election results


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Parliamentary elections

Organization

The movement has about 8,000 members. Its headquarters are on Abrahaminkatu in Helsinki. It employs four people full-time. The chairperson of the movement is Harry Harkimo.