Raimo Viljam Vistbacka (born 19 October 1945 in

Kauhava Kauhava is a town and municipality of Finland. It is part of the Southern Ostrobothnia region, northwest of Helsinki and by the main railway from Helsinki to Oulu. The town has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. Th ...

) is a Finnish politician and former member of the

Finnish Parliament The Parliament of Finland ( ; ) is the unicameral and supreme legislature of Finland, founded on 9 May 1906. In accordance with the Constitution of Finland, sovereignty belongs to the people, and that power is vested in the Parliament. The ...

. Vistbacka has a master's degree in law ('' varatuomari'') and he was the rural police chief (''nimismies'') in

Alajärvi Alajärvi is a town and municipality of Finland. It is located in the South Ostrobothnia region. The town has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is . The town is unilingually Finnish; there are f ...

in 1982–1996. He was first elected to the parliament in 1987, representing the Finns Party's predecessor, the

Finnish Rural Party The Finnish Rural Party ( fi, Suomen maaseudun puolue, SMP; sv, Finlands landsbygdsparti, FLP) was an agrarian and populist political party in Finland. Starting as a breakaway faction of the Agrarian League in 1959 as the Small Peasants' Party ...

. When the Finns Party was founded in 1995, Vistbacka became the party's first MP. He retired from the parliament in April 2011. In 2010 Vistbacka said that he hopes that the Finns Party will not have more than 10–14 MPs (the total number of MPs in Finland is 200). Vistbacka believed that a bigger parliamentary group cannot be controlled. Vistbacka left the Finns Party in 2017 and joined the

Blue Reform The Finnish Reform Movement ( fi, Korjausliike, korj), is a Finnish conservative political party. It was founded by the 19 MPs who left the Finns Party on 13 June 2017 in protest against Jussi Halla-aho having been elected party leader. The ne ...

. He was one of the Blue Reform candidates in the

2019 Finnish parliamentary election Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 14 April 2019. For the first time, no party received more than 20% of the vote. The Centre Party, which had been the largest party following the 2015 elections, dropped to fourth place, losing 18 seat ...

but was not elected.

References

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Parliament of Finland: Raimo Vistbacka
1945 births Living people People from Kauhava Finnish Rural Party politicians Leaders of the Finns Party Blue Reform politicians Ministers of Transport and Public Works of Finland Members of the Parliament of Finland (1987–91) Members of the Parliament of Finland (1991–95) Members of the Parliament of Finland (1995–99) Members of the Parliament of Finland (1999–2003) Members of the Parliament of Finland (2003–07) Members of the Parliament of Finland (2007–11) {{FinnsParty-politician-stub