Our next president Sauli Niinistö: Don’t take it for granted yet

Presidential Election 2012

Sauli Niinistö is one of Finland’s most popular politicians, arguably its most popular. Ever since his only narrow defeat against the incumbent president Tarja Halonen in the second round of the last presidential election, an election in which many predicted Halonen’s massive popularity would allow her to walk to victory already in the first round, Niinistö has been considered a dead-certain to win the post in 2012. And indeed, in the parliamentary election of 2007 Niinistö received the highest number of votes ever by a candidate and went on to be speaker of the last parliament.

Niinistö did not stand for re-election to parliament in this year’s election but, as expected, confirmed he would stand as a candidate for president a few weeks ago. Opinion polls show he continues to be massively popular. But, we should not take his victory for granted yet. The post of President of the Republic is not a job appointed by declaration. The people must vote. Indeed, as mentioned, Tarja Halonen was expected to be reelected easily in the 2006 election but had to fight a late surge by Niinistö. In 1994, Elisabeth Rehn was expected to win over Martti Ahtisaari with a relatively comfortable margin, but went on to lose by around 7 percentage points.

The former Social Democratic prime minister Paavo Lipponen has now announced that he wishes to be the SDP’s candidate in next year’s presidential poll. According to an opinion poll today, Niinistö would easily beat Lipponen in a run-off between the two: Niinistö would win 63% of the vote. But, it is early days. A lot can happen during the autumn and winter. Will the financial crisis get worse and cause people to shy away from the right? Will Niinistö come across as arrogant, almost expecting to become president without the need to win the people’s trust in the election. Lipponen is a formidable opponent. A true statesman and capable debater, although perhaps now rather old at 70 years old.

The Swedish vote in 2012

For Swedish-speakers, Lipponen is very much worth considering when choosing how to vote. Lipponen is an extremely strong supporter of Finland’s bilingualism. Indeed, he launched his bid for the SDP candidacy with a press conference that was very much bilingual in nature, something increasingly rare for Finnish-speaking politicians in Finland. Lipponen has on several occasions spoken out against the hardening attitude against Swedish in the media during the past few years. He has also acted as chairman for the Svenska Nu project, which aims to improve the status of Swedish as a school subject in Finnish-speaking schools. Lipponen’s Swedish is as near to perfect as it can be for a non-native speaker.

Lipponen’s candidacy would perhaps present a problem for the Swedish People’s Party (SFP). Many SFP voters would likely see Lipponen as a strong supporter for Swedish interests. Would it not be a good idea for SFP to back his election – a candidate with a chance of getting elected? On the other hand, SFP has many non-socialist supporters and, especially in the highly bilingual capital area, Niinistö’s popularity may be so strong as to cross the language divide. So, should SFP have its own candidate? And if so, whom? Well, as we’ve seen, if SFP selects the right person, it can do well. Elisabeth Rehn came close to taking the presidency in 1994.  In an election campaign that is likely to be dominated by two men, party leader Stefan Wallin has said he would like SFP to select a woman. Eva Biaudet stands out as the obvious candidate. Biaudet is currently Finland’s minorities ombudsman. She has spoken out against the increasingly intolerant atmosphere in Finnish society towards minority groups, especially in the wake of the rise of the populist True Finns. She could prove to be a strong candidate appealing to liberal voters of both language groups. But, would more socially conservative SFP supporters in rural Österbotten really be prepared to back a liberal candidate from Helsingfors/Helsinki? And should SFP really be cannibalising votes for strongly pro-Swedish Lipponen? The party has a tough choice ahead of it – but is aiming to make it within the next two weeks.

Pictured, the Presidential palace by the market square in the capital. This is the president’s office and the place where official guests are usually received, although today the president no longer lives there.

Ahtisaari encourages usage of Swedish, says Swedish lessons should start earlier in Finnish-speaking schools

Former Social Democrat, President and 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner Martti Ahtisaari has encouraged all Swedish-speaking Finns to use Swedish as much as possible in their contact with Finnish speakers, reports the (Finnish) Swedish Press Service news agency in Borgåbladet.

Ahtisaari’s comments come a day after he wrote a debate article in the capital’s main Finnish- and Swedish-language newspapers, Helsingin Sanomat and Hufvudstadsbladet, calling for the strength of Swedish to be strengthened. Ahtisaari was critical to recent developments which have weakened the status of Swedish in Finland and towards the decrease in functional bilingualism amongst Finnish-speaking Finns. Ahtisaari underlined the importance of knowledge of Swedish as an anchor for Finland’s Nordic identity. The former president proposed that Finnish-speaking students should start Swedish classes earlier in their school career, saying that starting during puberty in their seventh year of school as they do today was not a good thing for their attitude towards the language. Ahtisaari believes Swedish lessons should start at the primary level of education.

It is notable that Social Democrats can be perhaps be said to be amongst the most prepared to stand up for Swedish amongst Finnish-speaking politicians. Current President of the Republic Tarja Halonen has also spoken out in favour of Swedish. Former Prime Minister and Parliament speaker Paavo Lipponen also has actively promoted Swedish teaching through his involvement in the organisation Svenska Nu. Perhaps Finland’s Swedish-speakers would be better off with a government involving the SDP rather than Matti Vanhanen’s Centre party, who seem intent in breaking down Swedish structures wherever they can.

Vanhanen doesn’t want to be president

Finland’s Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (centre party) has ruled himself out of the 2012 presidential election already. Vanhanen told the newspaper Itä-Savo that he doesn’t want to be president and had already experienced one presidential election (the last one in 2006 where he ran and was eliminated in the first round after coming in third place with 18,6% of the vote). Vanhanen did however state that he was aiming for a third term as prime minister.

This leaves potentially both Centre and the Social Democrats without obvious candidates for the 2012 elections, although it is obviously still a long way off and the SDP will get a new chairman this summer.

Their main rivals, the National Coalition party Kokoomus do however have one obvious candidate, Sauli Niinistö. Niinistö came second in 2006 with 48,2% of the vote in the second round against Tarja Halonen. This was a respectable result considering highly popular Halonen got 49,4% in the first round and before that took place, people were tipping the election to be already settled in one round. Since then, Niinistö has been elected to the Finnish parliament in 2007′s election, getting the most personal votes ever in a parliamentary election, and become speaker of parliament. He’s seen to be popular and easily the favourite right now to become Kokoomus’ first president since Paasikivi who left office in 1956. Still, if a week is a long time in politics, 4 years is surely an eternity.