COMMENTARY: More at stake than a Foreign Minister's prestige

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By Kari Huhta
     
      Rather recently, in late January, many speeches were made at the regal 60th birthday celebrations of Ilkka Kanerva. They were directed at a professional heavyweight in Finnish politics who, as Minister for Foreign Affairs, has finally achieved significant uplift. On previous occasions, success had eluded him - often in the final stretch.
      Now, just a month and a half later, many of those who spoke will need to think what to do with a Foreign Minister who has consumed his personal political capital at a record rate at the expense of the prestige of the Finnish state.
      At the time of the birthday, there was guessing among the public at large and elsewhere on how Kanerva planned to use his considerable popularity.
     
In political circles, Kanerva was known as a capable person already when all that was known about him in public were his adventures with women.
      His rise into the government to the post of its most visible minister nevertheless came as a surprise.
      At no point did Kanerva himself set as a goal the Presidential elections to be held four years from now - at least not out loud. The elections were the first thing to be mentioned in the speculation of others.
     
Some claimed to see a slight irritability in the behaviour of the permanent National Coalition Party Presidential candidate Sauli Niinistö.
      The 60,000 votes that Niinistö got in the last parliamentary elections no longer seemed to be an insurmountable lead compared to Kanerva's catch in Turku of more than 11,000.
      After the elections a year ago, Niinistö was widely expected to be the next Foreign Minister, but Kanerva's rise to the post was clear already at the early stages of the government talks.
     
Kanerva began to amass prestige by easing his cooperation with President Tarja Halonen. After that, he melted the ice in relations with the United States and reacted promptly to the crisis caused by the movement of a war monument in Estonia.
      At the launch of Finland's chairmanship of the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) at the beginning of this year, Kanerva's position was so strong that even the setbacks were hardly noticed.
     
Before reaching the downhill phase it is worth mentioning that this time Kanerva's position was different from what it was in 2005, when he was in trouble for the text messages that he sent as a Member of Parliament and Deputy Speaker of Parliament. Then the question was most purely one of political responsibility toward voters in Turku and the National Coalition Party.
      This time he has amassed personal political capital as a Foreign Minister, by representing Finland, using Finland's prestige.
      When the Minister for Foreign Affairs squanders his political capital, it is necessary to think what impact this has on Finland.
     
Finland is small, but its position is stable, and ministers do not have to be changed right away for the sake of anyone else.
      External reasons are nevertheless also no impediment for changing a minister. In Denmark, Prime Minister Poul Schlüter resigned in 1993 in the middle of the country's EU Presidency after lying to Parliament.
     
Finland has a good civil service and mechanisms to prepare matters for dealing with continuity, and a list of capable candidates for the post of Minister for Foreign Affairs can rapidly be drawn up within the National Coalition Party.
      What is decisive is whether or not Kanerva enjoys enough confidence in Finland - will he be capable of efficiently dealing with his task in the world, and will his position bear the publication of the text messages that he sent a dancer?
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 15.3.2008


Previously in HS International Edition:
  National Coalition Party MP calls on Kanerva to resign (18.3.2008)
  Party leader expresses irritation over Foreign Minister´s antics (17.3.2008)
  Kanerva apologises over SMS uproar (14.3.2008)
  Foreign Minister admits to sending text messages to dancer (11.3.2008)
  Foreign Minister pulls out all the stops in 60th birthday bash (28.1.2008)
  Deputy Parliamentary Speaker Ilkka Kanerva upbraided for inappropriate SMS messages (16.6.2005)

KARI HUHTA / Helsingin Sanomat
kari.huhta@hs.fi