Why I Am Running Again for the 2025 Municipal Elections in Lohja

Four years ago, I stepped into the local politics of Lohja, first invited by the Green party and then from Meidan Lohja. I opted ML as I am not a fan of political parties, they behave as herds. My mission was and is clear: to challenge the status quo of political careerism and advocate for Direct Democracy—a system where citizens have a real say in decisions, every day, not just once every four years.

Today, I am running again for the 2025 Municipal Elections in Lohja with the same mission.

Why Run Again?

1. Meidän Lohja invited me again. Thats makes it easier!

2. The current political system continues the same, based on a 12th-century model of representation that is outdated, inefficient, and open to corruption. Career politicians operate in a closed system with no accountability, using political jargon and secret deals to maintain a grip on power.

3. We need to discuss alternatives, update democracy, from the small municipalities to larger assemblies. We need to replace professional politicians with engaged, everyday citizens who participate in governance out of civic duty, not personal ambition.

During my previous four-year term, I was awarded the position of Deputy Member of the Urban Planning Department of Lohja. One concrete achievement I fought for was ensuring that the official city documents—previously only available as scanned PDFs—are now machine-readable. This means they are easier to read, analyze, and translate, making governance more transparent and accessible for all citizens, including non-Finnish speakers. This change was a direct result of my complaint when I tried to access city council meeting minutes and found that they were inaccessible to translation tools.

For example, when attempting to review documents such as this one: http://dynasty.lohja.fi/Dynasty/cgi/DREQUEST.PHP?page=meetingitem&id=202020944-4 I realized they were only available in a scanned format, which made it impossible to translate using online tools. After raising the issue to Mikko Kuosmanen, the city responded to the need for machine-readable documents, improving accessibility and transparency.

In 2021, I campaigned on similar principles under Meidän Lohja, an association for independent candidates, and partnered with VoteOn, a company promoting direct democracy tools. My key proposals included:

• Making all city council documents public and available in a machine-readable format, so that citizens can easily translate and understand them.

• Implementing the VoteOn app to allow residents to vote on city matters through their chosen candidates.

• Ending professional politicians and political careerism, ensuring that governance is a temporary civic duty, not a lifelong job.

• Promoting local businesses and the beautification of Lohja by increasing pedestrian areas.

• Challenging Caruna electricity fees to ensure fair pricing for residents.

• Proposing alternatives to the high-speed Helsinki-Turku rail project to protect wildlife and promote regional train stops instead of prioritizing elite transport solutions.

During that campaign, I worked with VoteOn to provide a free mobile app for all Lohja candidates, allowing them to show their voting positions and allowing citizens to directly vote and track their representatives' decisions in real time. This tool is still available for adoption by any candidate willing to commit to direct democracy principles.

I have a large international experience in business, architecture and politics, designing large buildings in Asia and making a research with Prof John Keane on Architectural Democracy at Sydney University. You can read more about me and my work here https://aibeo.com/.

In Lohja I bought an old school and am renovating it into a gamified cohousing.

And even though I am rather busy and still not very good in speaking Finnish, maybe I can give something back from my experience to the Lohja community. :-)

Vote 290! :-)

Pedro Aibeo, 17.03.2025