Candidates for Centre Party leadership hold public debate in Sanoma House

Slight disruption from anti-nuclear protest

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The issue of transport projects in the Helsinki region was the source of common ground for Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Paavo Väyrynen and Minister of Economic Affairs Mauri Pekkarinen, who are both seeking the post of chairman of the Centre Party.
      Candidates Pekkarinen and Väyrynen, as well as Minister of Public Administration and Local Government Mari Kiviniemi and MP Timo Kaunisto took part in a public debate in Helsinki’s Sanoma House on Wednesday. Kiviniemi and Kaunisto looked on in amazement as their two rivals attacked the massive state financing of the transport infrastructure in the Helsinki region, such as the westward extension of the Helsinki Metro, and a planned ring rail link.
     
Väyrynen emphasised that concentrating jobs and population in the Helsinki region is expensive.
      “The competitiveness of the Helsinki region will improve not by bringing more people here, but through qualitative factors.”
     
Kiviniemi, who is the favourite of opinion polls, says that it is important to concentrate know-how in several centres.
      She hoped that the Helsinki region would not become too congested, and that it would instead, remain a human-sized place to live.
      Kaunisto warned against pitting rural and urban areas against each other:
      “We are hybrid people, sometimes we’re country folk and sometimes urban.”
     
Pekkarinen denied the suggestion put forward by one questioner, that he hated Helsinki. He emphasised that both skills and natural resources exist throughout Finland, and that they need to be utilised.
      Kiviniemi emphasised her pro-Helsinki sympathies, and emphasised in her introductory speech that she is aware of the needs of both cities and rural areas.
      When the candidates were asked about their views on predator control, Kiviniemi’s stance was closer to attitudes prevailing in cities than in the countryside; she felt that the wolf population should not be culled.
     
A small anti-nuclear demonstration took place in connection with the debate.
      Three opponents of nuclear energy, who were dressed as barrels of nuclear waste appeared on the scene shortly before the event began. They were accompanied by anti-nuclear activists handing out leaflets.
      The focus of the demonstration was Mauri Pekkarinen, who proposed granting licences for the construction two more commercial nuclear reactors.
      The protesters were sent out of the building several times before continuing their protest on the outside for the rest of the event.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Poll: Kiviniemi most popular candidate for Centre Party leadership (1.6.2010)
  Mauri Pekkarinen enters race for Centre Party leadership (26.2.2010)
  Paavo Väyrynen seeks return to Centre Party leadership (20.1.2010)
  Vanhanen announces he will not stand for re-election to Centre Party leadership (23.12.2009)

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