FINLAND: Election Marks Ideological Crossroads

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Linus Atarah

HELSINKI, Jan 27 2006 (IPS) - Finland goes to the polls for the second time in two weeks this Sunday to elect a new president.

The contest is expected to be close because opinion polls suggest that incumbent Tarja Halonen (62) of the Social Democratic Party is only marginally ahead of Sauli Niinisto (57) of the Conservative National Coalition Party.

In the first round, Halonen had 46.3 percent of the vote, placing her well ahead of Niinisto with 24.1 percent. A winner would need to clear 50 percent.

Earlier opinion polls predicted a straight win for Halonen, but Niinisto fast narrowed the gap.

The latest opinion poll gives Halonen an edge, but says a quarter of voters are still undecided.

Most of the undecided voters are believed to be supporters of Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, leader of the Centre Party who crashed out in the first round along with six others who failed to secure enough votes.

Presidential power is limited to foreign affairs, but that has been whittled down by recent constitutional amendments under which the president has to share foreign policy powers with the cabinet.

Urho Kekkonen (1956-1982), the longest serving post-war Finnish president, managed foreign policy virtually single-handedly. Kekkonen was also the last centre-right president. Since then all have been social democrats.

The foreign policy issue that has taken centre stage in the election campaign is whether Finland should join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

Halonen says there are no grounds for taking Finland into a military alliance, in spite of its long border with Russia. Niinisto, on the other hand, says he is in favour of Finland’s membership. But both agree that a decision should be based on a referendum.

A majority of Finnish people are against NATO membership, according to some opinion polls.

The final round essentially comes down to a contest of values the two candidates stand for.

A human rights lawyer and a former minister in the social, justice and foreign ministries, Halonen is a passionate supporter of fair globalisation that would seek to protect impoverished and marginalised people in developing countries.

She chaired the International Labour Organisation (ILO) commission on the social dimension of globalisation along with Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa. That report released two years ago called for a fair globalisation.

But Halonen’s high profile on global issues may eventually prove her undoing because Finnish people want a president who focuses more on its closest neighbours, Esko Antola, professor of international politics at Turku University told IPS. “Probably there is a latent need for a change,” he said.

Niinisto, a former finance minister and currently vice-director of the Luxemburg-based European Investment Bank is seen by his critics as a “neo-liberal hawk” who wants to introduce fundamentalist market policies.

“Niinisto believes in a trickle-down effect which means the poor will be better off if the rich gets richer,” Thomas Wallgren, senior lecturer in philosophy at Helsinki University told IPS. “If Niinisto wins the elections, culturally it will take Finland back 50 years.”