Finnish Lawmaker Who Fired Gun Outside Bar Is Expelled From Party

Europe|Finnish Lawmaker Who Fired Gun Outside Bar Is Expelled From Party

Finland’s right-wing nationalist Finns Party has surged in recent years, gathered 20 percent of the vote last year and entered a governing coalition as the country’s second-biggest political force.

But since the party came to power, a government minister has had to apologize for racist remarks, another was forced to resign after making Nazi references, and most recently, a lawmaker was expelled from the party after firing a gun outside a bar.

Riikka Purra, the finance minister and party chair, said last week that the party had acted swiftly to address the most recent incident, involving the lawmaker, Timo Vornanen. However, Ms. Purra told the national broadcaster Yle, “We are still, perhaps most of all, the kind of party that people join from outside politics.”

“For better and for worse, our membership may be plagued by such problems,” she said.

The police said that a 54-year-old man — whom Finns Party officials identified as Mr. Vornanen, a member of Parliament with the party — pointed a gun at two people and fired a shot into the ground at about 4 a.m. on April 26 after a bar brawl in downtown Helsinki.

The police did not name Mr. Vornanen, as is customary in Finland while an investigation is taking place, but Mr. Vornanen, 54, acknowledged his involvement in the incident and the fact that he carried a gun. Mr. Vornanen said he would continue serving as a member of Parliament and found an independent parliamentary group.

The chief of investigations for the Helsinki police, Jukka Larkio, told Yle that “quite a lot of alcohol had been consumed” late on a Thursday night and into the early morning hours, when the brawl happened at the bar, near Finland’s Parliament building, which “surely had an effect.”