Not lovable, but not a mean martinet, either

Tarja Halonen genuinely wants to make a better world

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By Raija Kaikkonen
     
      Tarja Halonen, 62, is not a warm, cuddly and loveable Moominmamma*, but then again she is not a wicked taskmaster who drives her subordinates down onto their knees. She is cordial, intelligent, complex, hardworking, strong-willed, and single-minded.
      This is the verdict on the newly re-elected President among those who count among her supporters and detractors alike.
      They have known Halonen for decades.
      Of all the terms sprayed around, it is nevertheless "single-minded" that rises to the top of the pile, or in simpler terms "domineering". "She comes at you like a Panzer assault; she has no mercy, but she is fair."
     
However, women point out that there is nothing new in this: "old men" have been bossing people around since time immemorial, and nobody has raised an eyebrow at that.
      Halonen can certainly snip and snap at her civil servants, because they sometimes turn up at press briefings with faces burning red.
      Brussels journalists are irked by the President's style of speaking. "Halonen talks nineteen to the dozen, but what she says at the beginning is quite different from the stuff at the end. Go and make a decent quote out of that."
     
In her quest to be 'the President of all the people', Halonen has avoided putting people's backs up.
      She did not refrain from this in earlier days, but accepted the chairmanship of SETA (Seksuaalinen Tasavertaisuus, Sexual Equality), the main Finnish gay and lesbian rights organisation, even though she knew it would cause annoyance and spark rumours.
      Her extensive activities in associations and NGOs are often the fault of the associations themselves, as they have consciously and zealously sought the services of a progressive lawyer.
     
Halonen has accepted the appointments, since there are undoubted benefits to be had from involvement in NGOs and other networks. She would not have got herself into Parliament solely on the votes of neighbours in the Kallio district of Helsinki.
      And yet being engaged in solidarity and development cooperation work is not all geared to fame or building a political constituency. Halonen has the world-improver gene to a fault: she genuinely wants to make the planet a better place, believes the task can be achieved in small steps, and works to see it happen.
     
Halonen's personal relationships have been turbulent, but one is set in stone: her daughter Anna has always been the most important of all.
      She was also extremely attached to her mother Lyyli - and feels "much the same about Pentti". Pentti Arajärvi is her long-time partner, and the couple married in August 2000, after she was elected for the first time.
      The President has her values right: former colleagues recall how discussions were interrupted when Anna rang and reported that the pet bunny had slipped on the parquet floor. Halonen leapt to her feet and took the injured animal to the vet to get a cast on its leg. Her colleagues laughed: a pretty well-heeled rabbit, slipping on a polished wooden floor like that.
     
Halonen has a good sense of humour, with a dash of male raunchiness in there.
      Nobody could even imagine Tarja Halonen as a society wife, but she is also not really the home-making type, either. "She would make pancakes and cook food and all, but certainly not gourmet cuisine. And the vegetable rows at the allotment in Marjaniemi were never straight..."
     
Halonen is a shrewd negotiator, probably a product of her early days (in the 1970s) as a trade union lawyer.
      She was also the Deputy-Chair of the Finnish Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from 1991 to 1995 and later sat on the Ministerial Committee.
      Those who were present at CoE discussions have the greatest difficulty understanding talk of her being shrewish, nervous, or given to tantrums.
     
When the going got sticky, Halonen simply slowed down the talk and stayed cool. Many current European prime ministers and foreign ministers remember her specifically as an effective negotiator: someone who would give way on the small things but stuck to her guns on the core agenda.
      The Council of Europe has remained something of a favourite son for the President: as the only European head of state to do so, she regularly mentions it alongside the European Union.
      And this despite the fact that the work of the Council is not particularly media-sexy, because in the words of one Spanish politician: "It doesn't make headlines, it makes history".
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 30.1.2006
     
* Note: From the character in the popular illustrated Moomintroll books by the Finnish authoress Tove Jansson


Previously in HS International Edition:
  President Halonen seeks new second-term role in promoting values (31.1.2006)

Links:
  The President of The Republic of Finland

RAIJA KAIKKONEN / Helsingin Sanomat
raija.kaikkonen@hs.fi