Halonen's new six years

COLUMN

Tarja Halonen

print this

By Erkki Pennanen
     
      So Tarja Halonen, elected President of the Republic six years ago, is to continue as head of state until 2012. Although Halonen's twelve years in office will still leave her with only half of Urho Kekkonen's health-interrupted stint at the helm, in the modern world it seems like a long time.
      This feeling should in no way be ascribed to the writer's sense of disappointment at the election outcome, since to my mind Sauli Niinistö's talents would ultimately be better suited to, say, the position of Prime Minister, rather than the office of the presidency.
      Niinistö did a great deal better in the election than many would have anticipated beforehand.
     
When in Mauno Koivisto's time the rule was introduced limiting the presidential term of office to two successive six-year terms, it seemed like a significant reform.
      Since then we have moved into such stable political conditions at home that a dozen years is beginning to feel like a hangover from a bygone era.
     
In countries where the office of president enjoys a large measure of power, such as the United States and even Russia, the pattern is for four-year terms and a maximum of one re-election. This is also the most common limit in many other countries. France and Finland belong among the exceptions to the rule.
      The safeguarding of continuity at the head of the country was regarded in past decades as an important foreign and domestic policy issue. Now the President no longer "directs" the course of Finnish foreign policy as in the wording of the old [pre-2000] Constitution, but he or she is bound to cooperation with the government of the day in the management of foreign policy.
     
In terms of home affairs, the President has nothing to say or do over the changing of governments or the appointment of a Prime Minister. These days, governments last at least the length of a Parliamentary term, or four years.
      Paavo Lipponen held the PM's position for two electoral terms, or eight years, and he would have gone on longer if the election result [in 2003] had permitted it.
      In Sweden, Göran Persson is just coming up to marking ten years as head of the government there. In the view of many Swedes this manifests itself in a noticeable jadedness and an excess of self-importance.
      The authority vested in prime ministers lasts a maximum of four years at a time, and during that period, too, the PM is constantly at the mercy of the confidence of Parliament, unlike the President, who is elected by the people.
     
Even if the powers of the modern-day President are less sweeping than those of the Prime Minister, this in no sense means the President is just some ceremonial head of state. He or she is still a self-evident leader of the country's foreign policy. Tarja Halonen has further linked to this a military dimension: "The Commander-in-Chief is always the Commander-in-Chief".
      In the view of some, the best model for reducing a 12-year presidential term would be to limit the period in office to a single six-year term. To my mind, two four-year terms would be a better choice.
      A direct election requires in my view that the incumbent President has the opportunity to be re-elected and that the voters have the chance to consider whether they wish to grant the occupant of the post a second term.
     
The elections of January 2006 were interesting in this respect. Not very long ago, Tarja Halonen looked like the hottest favourite you could imagine. In the first round of voting she might have won the necessary absolute majority, were it not for the fact, for instance, that the Greens had decided to put up their own candidate in order to make good use of the available publicity.
      In the head-to-head second round, almost half of the voters were prepared to change Halonen for Sauli Niinistö. This if anything implies that the public's attitude to the President and to the Presidency has begun to change.
      Even a popular President cannot be lulled into thinking that the public are inevitably going to grant an extension of the mandate. Although the election battle was not fought out openly under gender-banners, men and women as a whole voted differently: the women rescued Halonen's second term, while a clear majority of men voted for Niinistö.
     
Tarja Halonen regards herself as very democratic, but during the campaign even she was unable to conceal a certain incumbent's irritation, a kind of "arrogance born out of power". It was again in evidence at Monday's post-election press conference. A "President for all the people" should apparently not have been categorised, even during the campaign, as the candidate of the Left, something which made such a large number of Centre-Right voters chose to side instead with Niinistö.
     
What will change in Halonen's second term? It would be important precisely with Halonen's experience to think carefully about the position of the President of the Republic under the conditions of the new Constitution. Halonen's twelve years will come to have great significance in the "running-in" of the new document, about which she herself spoke at the beginning of her first term.
      The powers of the President will not be altered for Halonen's second term. Any possible changes will therefore affect only the time after 2012. The established practices in the application of the Constitution can nevertheless be just as important as any amendments made to the substance of the text.
     
One key problem-area is the division in the Constitution between the President's directing of foreign policy and the government's powers of decision-making on EU matters. This can lead easily to a turf war between the Presidency and the government.
      Tarja Halonen should show restraint and admit that the President should not set out to compete on any issue with a government that is responsible to the will of Parliament. The President can have a role, and a relatively prominent one, in the running of foreign policy when - and only when - the holder of the office works in concert with the government.
      For the President and the government to drift into some public stand-off would be an untenable situation.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 1.2.2006


Previously in HS International Edition:
  COMMENTARY: Finnish Presidential election had two winners (30.1.2006)
  COLUMN: "The Commander-in-Chief is always the Commander-in-Chief" (7.12.2005)

ERKKI PENNANEN / Helsingin Sanomat
erkki.pennanen@hs.fi