As advance voting begins, Soini begs for support of Finns Party faithful

As many as four viable candidates to join Niinistö in second round

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”I will win the election, if you vote for me”, the Finns Party’s presidential candidate Timo Soini appealed to his supporters in the YMCA Hall in Tampere on Monday. ”Work for my selection. And take a friend along with you”, he begged.
      Soini is in trouble, as the recent election polls show that his popularity remains stalled at 10 per cent, which is much lower than that of the party in the country.
      The Finns Party’s dizzyingly large increase in support that started from the Presidential Elections of 2006 now threatens to peter out.
     
Advance voting begins today. The situation in the current Presidential Election race is very different from the one six years ago, when the representatives of the three then largest parties in Parliament were battling for the top position.
      Today, the gallup figures indicate that the number of viable candidates for the second round is as high as five.
      Sauli Niinistö, the candidate of the National Coalition Party, remains the front-runner, while Timo Soini, Pekka Haavisto (Green League), Paavo Väyrynen (Centre), and Paavo Lipponen (SDP) are all competing for the second place and a run-off in February.
      The greatest surprise has probably been the low support for Paavo Lipponen. What makes it so surprising is the fact that in the parties’ own surveys Lipponen’s ”potential” is seen as the second highest, right after that of Sauli Niinistö. The potential is studied by asking the respondents whom of the candidates they imagine they could vote for.
     
Lipponen’s problem is that for many voters he is the second alternative after Niinistö.
      And because the purpose in the elections is to vote for only one candidate, the second place does not give any pleasure to anyone.
      On Monday, Lipponen declared to the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE that his mission is to defend an open, international, and liberal Finland.
      At the same time, many people who similarly regard the Finns Party with disfavour seem to be inclined to think that Pekka Haavisto is their choice.
      In addition to Niinistö, only Haavisto’s popularity is punching higher than the weight of his own party.
     
”For many people, the threshold to vote for a Green candidate is higher than it is to vote for a gay one”, Haavisto noted at a campaign event in Ylöjärvi near Tampere on Monday.
      The green element has been eliminated entirely from Haavisto’s campaign, which does not focus for example on cycling events with a green mentality. Instead, Haavisto delivers speeches at hairdressing fairs or on the opening ceremonies of the winter swimming season.
      In Huittinen in Southwestern Finland, a traditional core area of the Centre Party, Haavisto advised people to drive away both wolves and clandestine photographers of pigs from their yards.
     
At the same time, Paavo Väyrynen’s campaign also proceeds in a good atmosphere, as he has nothing to lose.
      If the veteran politician makes it into the second round of the elections, he himself will take the credit for it as well as for the rescue of the Centre Party from its present travails.
      And if he doesn't make it, the guilty ones will be found among the party leaders who did not support him enough from the outset.
      At a political quiz arranged on Monday, Väyrynen gathered the loudest laughter from the audience. He has managed to turn his once annoying reckless self-confidence into a kind of self-ironic humour.
     
Even though the election day is only about ten days hence, and the election fever is increasing, the atmosphere is calmer than it was six years ago.
      In 2006, a socialist-capitalist battle that polarized the people developed between the incumbent President Tarja Halonen and her main challenger Sauli Niinistö.
      This time, such polarisation does not seem to arise, as Sauli Niinistö - the clear favourite in all polls - has positioned himself in the centre on all issues.
      As the conservatives of the National Coalition Party and elsewhere are likely to vote for him come what may, Niinistö can carelessly leap onto the traditional turf of the Left, demanding the rich to take part in joint efforts and speaking on behalf of those who are marginalised.
      The parliamentary elections last year polarised into a fight between the pro-EU National Coalition Party and the euro-sceptic True Finns (now called the Finns Party), and to some degree also the Social Democratic Party, which steered away from its earlier pro-Eu stance in order to stem the bleeding to the populists under Soini.
      Basically, Niinistö takes a pro-EU attitude, but he has presented so much criticism against eurozone support that this does not lead to any real polarisation.
     
Niinistö’s election tactic is to minimise all risks, in order that the lead long since given him by the polls does not melt away in the final stretch.
      On Monday, Niinistö gave a short and rather vague speech in the centre of Hämeenlinna, after which he moved on to press the flesh and shake hands with the listeners.
      The middle-aged members of the audience were in ecstasy, thronging to get Niinistö’s autograph like on a gig of The Renegades in the 1960s.
     
The Election of the President of the Republic will be arranged on Sunday January 22nd 2012.
      Advance voting in Finland: From 11 to 17 January.
      Advance voting abroad: From 11 to 14 January.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  YLE presidential election poll shows Haavisto rising to second place (9.1.2012)

Links:
  Ministry of Justice: Elections website

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