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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.
Svenskfinland in English has been taking a little (okay, long) break of late. I have simply had too much to do with work and, if I am honest, I lost the urge to blog. But had I been blogging away as usual during the last six months or so, I fear that this blog would not have made happy reading.
The language climate in Finland is becoming ever less tolerant and the position of Swedish risks being so seriously maligned that a future in which it is possible to access public services in one’s mother tongue seems ever more bleak.
Amongst things that have happened in the last few months include the ongoing saga of the orientation of the city of Karleby (Kokkola) in Österbotten. Despite various bodies stating that for linguistic reasons it should be included in the Österbotten region with its state services located in Vasa, the Centre party (led by very vocal support from new Prime Minister Mari Kiviniemi) continues to call for its incorporation into the district led by the unilingual Finnish-speaking city of Oulu/Uleåborg. The question seems to have become a matter of stubbornness amongst Centre party members who do not want to back-down even in the face of the Constitution which would seem to make any northern orientation illegal because of the linguistic consequences.
Maternity services at Ekenäs hospital in Western Nyland have closed down despite massive protests by local inhabitants and many, mainly Swedish-speaking, politicians. The municipality of Raseborg, where the hospital is located, has a majority of Swedish-speaking Finns and the hospital was the last in a Swedish-speaking majority area in southern Finland to offer maternity services. Residents of Raseborg will now be forced to travel to hospital in Lojo or Esbo to give birth, where Swedish-speaking service is often hard to obtain. Ludicrously, some Finnish-speaking members of the hospital board covering much of southern Finland suggested that Raseborg residents could travel to Borgå hospital if they wanted to be sure of Swedish service when they give birth – a journey of 153 km taking around 2 hours by car – hardly feasible for a mother entering labour!
The debate surrounding Swedish-language instruction in Finnish-speaking schools heated up during the last six months with debate on its future even making the main headlines in the Finnish-language media. The debate – even in the mainstream media outlets such as Yleisradio and Helsingin Sanomat - continues to use the pejorative term pakkoruotsi to describe the teaching of Swedish, meaning roughly ‘forced/compulsory Swedish’ – strangely one never hears of ‘forced mathematics’ or ‘forced biology’ classes. The debate gained prominence largely because the National Coalition Kokoomus party’s congress voted against the party leadership’s direction on a measure calling for the abandonment of Swedish as a compulsory school subject for Finnish-speakers. The Confederation of Finnish Industry (EK) also called for its abolishment. According to EK, schools ought to offer a broader range of languages instead of compulsory Swedish. This seems to suggest that the teaching of Swedish is an impediment to the learning of other languages, which is of course very strange logic indeed. Learning Swedish is naturally of no hindrance to also learning Russian, German, French, Chinese or any other language. Finland’s bilingualism ought to be a plus for Finnish industry’s competitiveness, especially when Finland is a Nordic country. EK’s reasoning was dealt a further blow when a survey showed that 80% of companies in the finance sector regarded the knowledge of Swedish as a decisive factor when choosing how to employ.
In a move that has the potential to cause the loss of life, reports of a 112 emergency call centre failing to be able to speak Swedish to a unilingual Swedish-speaking caller from Sibbo have again been in the media in recent weeks. Fortunately, the call was not concerning a life-threatening medical condition and the caller was eventually able to pass her phone to a neighbour who spoke good Finnish – but the example shows that authorities are not living up to their legal obligations in even the most serious areas of service-provision. What would have happened if it was a serious condition and an ambulance was not dispatched in time to save a life? Emergency messages to the public that are broadcast on television screens as text have also failed to appear in Swedish in two incidents recently, once concerning a severe fire in the largely Swedish-speaking town of Hangö.
In film-related news, Swedish subtitles have also been missing from many cinema film showings of late with cinema films blaming it on digitalisation. Apparently modern technology means that it’s not possible to do what was quite achievable before – namely to show subtitles in two languages at the same time. A debate has also blown up in the Swedish-speaking press surrounding the new Moomintroll film. The film will premier in Finnish and English with the Swedish-language version to follow only a few weeks later. Given that the Moomintrolls are probably the most famous Swedish-speaking Finns, concern has been raised that this is a sign of ever increasing Finnish-language cultural imperialism in Finland. An attempt to deny that the Swedish language is part of Finland’s culture – even with the now world-famous Moomintrolls, a Swedish-speaking creation.
It is not all bad news, the increasing indifference and lack of understanding for Swedish has raised concern even amongst prominent Finnish-speaking politicians. Elder statesmen Martti Ahtisaari (former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner) and Paavo Lipponen (former Prime Minister) have spoken in favour of Swedish. President Tarja Halonen has also expressed her concern for recent developments.
Pictured: Protesters against the closure of the maternity ward in Ekenäs on the steps of Parliament in Helsingfors/Helsinki.
European parliament member Henrik Lax (sfp)
Member of the European Parliament Henrik Lax believes that Finnish politicians are understating the threat that Russia presents. He told yesterday’s meeting of the Swedish People’s Party (Sfp) board that the Georgia-crisis gives serious reasons for Finland to review its position towards Russia.
Lax told the Sfp meeting that people ought to clearly realise that Russia is pursuing a policy of confrontation and not cooperation.
He was critical of the government’s reaction to the turn of events and seemed to also direct criticism at the president of the republic, Tarja Halonen. Lax stated that we should not be putting the Estonians’ conclusions on the events in Georgia into a psychological context. According to Lax, “they have a much more realistic understanding of Russia that we do”. In recent days, Halonen has come under heavy criticism from especially the Estonian media after it had appeared she suggested that Estonia was still suffering from a kind of post-Soviet stress.
Lax said that Finland’s position was in danger of being so naive and uncritical that “we should not be surprised if the word ‘finlandisation’ turns up again [to describe the Finnish position] – both at home and abroad”
Henrik Lax has long taken an interest in Russian affairs, being critical in the past of the Nord Stream gas pipeline project under the Baltic sea – particularly the Nord Stream company’s lack of openness. He will retire from the European parliament at the next election to it.
The Finnish people are not particularly concerned about the security situation here as a result of the events in the Caucasus. According to an opinion poll, ordered by Finland’s public radio and tv company Yle, 60% of respondents didn’t see the war as having any effect on Finland’s security status. A third did consider that the events in Georgia mean Finland is less secure than before. People living in eastern Finland (i.e. nearer the border with Russia) were slightly more concerned than those elsewhere in the country.
38% of Finns saw Russia as more guilty of starting the conflict. 10% believed Georgia was more in the wrong. 28% believed both parties bore equal responsibility. A fourth didn’t wish to take a position on who was more behind the conflict.
Events in Georgia continue to cause concern despite the ceasefire now having been signed by both Moscow and Tbilisi. Russian troops appear to be leaving Georgian territory deliberately slowly. Yesterday, President Tarja Halonen telephoned Russian president Medvedev. According to the president’s press office, Halonen pressed Medvedev to accept an increase in the number of OSCE monitors from 10 to 100. This seems to show that the nominally-social democratic president of the republic is supporting foreign minister Alexander Stubb´s (Kokoomus national coalition party) OSCE-chairmanship and backing up his rather strong involvement in this crisis. It would have been easy to assume that there might have been tensions between NATO-enthusiast Stubb and the president, who has been restrained (and some might even say, too deferential) when dealing with the Russians in the past. Responsibility for foreign policy is shared by the president and government, according to the Finnish constitution. The president is perceived as having the right to lead it.
Russia has also announced it is to fit nuclear weapons to naval vessels patrolling the Baltic sea. This is perhaps concerning more for the risk of accidents than any actual deliberate chance of them being used as force. According to many reports, much of even the operable parts of Russia’s naval fleet are in extremely poor condition. In other words, things haven’t improved since the Kursk disaster. Let’s just hope something more serious doesn’t occur in the Baltic.
Because I know how much you all like gossip (but of course, would never admit to) – and because I don’t have much time at the moment to write something more intellectual (or at least lenghier!), here’s a picture of Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (centre) together with his girlfriend Sirkka Mertala from yesterday evening. They are seen being received by the President of the Republic Tarja Halonen at the annual dinner for foreign diplomats at the president’s palace in Helsinki. It’s the first time they’ve appeared together in public since the Emma Gala (music awards) at the beginning of March.
To bring a glimmer of credibility to this posting, Hufvudstadsbladet reports that President Halonen used her dinner speech to speak on the topic of climate change, international development funding and Finland’s role in the international community. She emphasised the effect of climate change on the lives of women in poor developing countries.
Picture: Lehtikuva/Jussi Nukari via Hufvudstadsbladet’s website
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