Could the worries of Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) about the limits to his own privacy be the road to self-censorship of the media?
Will it lead to us journalists becoming wary of spreading information that might be objectionable to Vanhanen? Will we for instance henceforth refrain from any references to his romantic adventures before the rings have been exchanged or before Vanhanen has himself promised to publish news of his dating?
My fears over the self-censorship of the press and airwaves come out of the fact that the PM wishes to clarify the boundaries of his private space over the book Pääministerin morsian (The Prime Minister's Bride) published earlier this year by his former girlfriend Susan Ruusunen (formerly Susan Kuronen). The prosecutor is demanding a conviction for spreading information violating Vanhanen's private life from the book's publisher Kari Ojala and the author Ruusunen.
The power exercised by a prime minister in Finland is so great that the rest of us citizens would do well to be aware of what sort of life he spends outside of working hours.
If Vanhanen shows up as a wild and woolly bachelor in bars and on online dating sites, it perhaps poses the question of whether or not we have a PM who can be taken seriously.
If Vanhanen succeeds in erecting a wall around his private life, we are making a return to the days of President Urho Kekkonen, when the nation's leaders went out womanising and gallivanting about without the slightest of press eyebrow-raising. It has only been the memoirs that came later that have shed some light on the interesting goings-on behind the curtain in the corridors of power.
If one follows the international media, it is plain to see that the private lives of leading political figures are most definitely not hidden behind walls of silence.
Thus far, the Finnish media really quite have been kid-gloved.
In Britain, for instance, the Prime Minister would get laughed at if he were to demand a clarification of the limits of his privacy.
Not in Finland, apparently.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 8.10.2007
