Centre Party rolls out Kekkonen as European election icon
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By Anna-Stina Nykänen
The hot name in the upcoming elections for the European Parliament is the late President Urho Kekkonen (1900-1986). Who would have imagined it?
Kekkonen is the commanding figure in election advertisements of the Centre Party. Previously, Kekkonen had been used to sell the mobile telephone service Tele Finland, as well as Panda liquorice, Viviscal baldness cures, and Sampo debit cards.
Kekkonen even haunts the fund-raising campaign of the University of Turku. So why shouldn’t the party use its own man, a former member of the Agrarian League (the previous name of the Centre Party) for its own purposes?
The ploy of using Kekkonen as the draw of the campaign was a common idea of the Centre Party’s party office and the advertising agency PHS, which is considered a leader in the business.
“There is no point in wasting several hundred thousand euros on fluff. A campaign needs to raise emotions”, says Centre Party information officer Matti Mönttinen, who has a key role in the planning of the election campaign.
Mönttinen feels that Kekkonen is appropriate for a campaign, in which a party defends its old ways of doing things - the very ones that others are criticising.
So the idea is to turn the somewhat authoritarian character of Kekkonen into a virtue.
In his Kekkonen campaign, Mönttinen mainly emphasises self-irony: “It is a departure from the old.”
He feels that self-irony can attract ambivalent supporters - those who are making comparisons.
So in the Centre Party’s campaign, Kekkonen is simultaneously supporting the old, and creating the new. Similarly, Kekkonen can be taken seriously, or with a sense of humour.
The campaign made the President’s grandson, Timo Kekkonen, smile.
Finland’s best-known Kekkonen expert, Juhani Suomi, meanwhile sees the use of Kekkonen’s name as grotesque, noting that Kekkonen’s thinking has nothing to do with the EU.
However, Kekkonen’s role in the EU elections does not necessarily have anything to do with the policies that he promoted.
“Perhaps the party simply wants to show that we have produced, and will produce tough guys”, says semiotician Vaula Norrena.
As Norrena sees it, next to the picture of a strong leader it is possible to hope to absorb part of that person’s strength. The risk is that the contrast will simply grow.The question arises: what is missing in the current leaders?
It might come to mind that Kekkonen was a ladies man, but he never sent text messages - only letters, that the women never complained about.
Kekkonen has reached mythical proportions, which are difficult to surpass. He is part of folklore. in suburban pubs stories are told whose lesson is that after Kekkonen everything has gone wrong. “Even little children know Kekkonen.”
Kekkonen certainly awakens bitter thoughts as well, Norrena says, but many take a warm view of Kekkonen, understanding that he was a man of his own time.
In difficult times people yearn for a strong leader.
Kekkonen is like comfort food, a delicacy of a bygone day, which people go back to in times of uncertainty, Norrena says.
“Kekkonen is a safe figure, but if someone takes too serious an attitude, then it’s pathetic.”
She feels that there is a nostalgia linked with Kekkonen that is similar to that for music of the 1970s, such as that of Abba, or cars from the 1950s. People do not seriously want them back, even though they come back into fashion from time to time.
Many are angered that the Centre Party has decided to own the retro boss of the whole nation, who had become apolitical by now.
Kekkonen was a cult person, an icon, a sex symbol, and a joke: a man who sold his country, and a patriot.
Kekkonen is one of the most popular photo subjects on Sampo Bank debit cards, even though motifs available include the poppy pattern of Marimekko, the Munich Olympics run of Lasse Virén, a Stenvall duck painting, and many others.
Kekkonen is favoured by young people who never experienced Kekkonen’s time as a national leader, esplains marketing head Pekka Törmälä. For young people Kekkonen was more an interesting persona than a political figure of influence.
“As an image, his popularity might be compared with that of the most famous pose of Che Guevara - most probably do not link the picture with any political context in everyday usage”, Törmälä says.
The popularity is enhanced by an effective image. It is the same as in the election campaign.
Kekkonen poses with his arms folded in a portrait photo taken by Jussi Aalto in 1976, which is apparently becoming the best-known Kekkonen motif. Aalto hopes that he will not end up like Alberto Korda. The Che Guevara picture taken by Korda was disseminated on t-shirts, posters, and cigarette lighters, and the photographer never got a penny for it.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 3.5.2009
ANNA-STINA NYKÄNEN / Helsingin Sanomat
anna-stina.nykanen@hs.fi
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| 5.5.2009 - THIS WEEK |
 Centre Party rolls out Kekkonen as European election icon |
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