Greater Helsinki metropolis would be massive political force
HS imagines new regional political setup
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The city councils of Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, and Kauniainen are organising a joint meeting in Otaniemi in Espoo today, Tuesday.
The meeting is to focus on an urban plan aimed at closer cooperation among the cities in the greater Helsinki region in the planning and implementation land use, transport, and services.
What if the council members were to suddenly decide to link the four municipal entities together?Helsingin Sanomat analyses what the opening of a greater Helsinki council would look like in January 2013.
The National Coalition Party is celebrating a victory.
In municipal elections in 2012, the party won decisively the new metropolis. The fun is not at all dampened by the loss of the hegemony that it had in Espoo.
With its population of more than a million, Greater Helsinki has massive political power. National politics is increasingly metropolis-driven because this is how Finland is supposed to succeed in global competition.
Even happier are the Greens. Although they are a small party on the national scale, the Greens suddenly surged to be a significant political entity in the Helsinki region.
Greater Helsinki continues to attract more and more young people, which is expected to favour the National Coalition Party and the Greens.
In the Centre Party, on the other hand, there are increasing pressures to focus on needs of areas, and voters in the rest of Finland. The Social Democrats continue to struggle with stagnating electoral support.
Voter turnout shot up in the municipal elections of October 2012. Elections for the Metropolitan Council attracted increasing numbers of candidates with major name recognition.
On the other hand, issues such as extending the Metro to Helsinki-Vantaa Airport, and expansion into Sipoo have brought more voters to the polls.
The old municipal borders are evident in the vote count. Many who might formerly have stayed at home on election day have gone to the polls to cast ballots for either celebrity candidates, or popular local figures.
The five-year-old Metropolitan Baby, who was recognised as the millionth resident of the Greater Helsinki area in 2007, officially opened the session with the bang of a gavel.
the last to speak is Jussi Pajunen, who is retiring from his post as Mayor of Helsinki.
Instead of the previous appointed Mayor, the metropolis will have a new kind of Mayor to be elected by popular vote in the autumn. The Mayor will have more than 60,000 subordinates and a budget of nearly EUR six billion. Pajunen has been a strong name as a candidate ever since Sauli Niinistö was elected President of Finland in the spring of 2012.
Both the Social Democrats and the Greens plan a serious challenge to the National Coalition Party. The Social Democrats have asked former President Tarja Halonen and Helsinki Deputy Mayor Tuula Haatainen. Strong candidates for the Greens are Pekka Haavisto and Heidi Hautala.
Whispering in the hallway are a large group of civil servants and former municipal politicians.
The Metropolitan Council, with 100 seats, left 154 former City Council members out in the cold. Many of them are considering running in regional council elections to be held in connection with the Mayor's election.
The city has been divided into ten large boroughs, and the regional administration has kept old civil servants busy.
The name of the city is to be Helsinki. None of the other proposals, such as Helspoo, Metrola, Hevaeska, were found to be very inspiring.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 19.6.2007 - TODAY |
 Greater Helsinki metropolis would be massive political force |
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