PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION - COMMENTARY: “A president of all the people”

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By Marko Junkkari
     
      The National Coalition Party’s Sauli Niinistö practically crushed the Greens’ Pekka Haavisto in the second round of the presidential elections. However, no funeral atmosphere prevailed at Haavisto’s post-election party at Helsinki’s Tavastia Club.
      There was good reason to celebrate: the societal significance of the presidential elections also springs from the election itself, and not just the outcome.
     
In an election between two candidates, the support for both often ends up being close to 50 per cent. The scores are evened out, because the finalists usually move toward the centre in their views. At the preliminary stages, the candidates can be very liberal or very conservative, but in the actual election, they position themselves close to the ideological divide.
      No such shifts were seen in the battle between Niinistö and Haavisto, because they were already close to one other. Both are pro-euro and have a bourgeois way of thinking. Both defend the welfare state, and neither of them would bring Finland into NATO right away.
     
There was not even a battle line between liberal and conservative values, as Niinistö refused to allow himself to be packaged by the home, church, and country wing of the National Coalition Party.
      So all that was left were the personalities of the candidates themselves, but even there it was difficult to find differences. Both are capable and distinguished politicians. For some voters Haavisto’s homosexuality was an impediment, but the outcome of the elections shows that many who are not part of the latte-drinking liberal members of the self-identified “subculture of tolerance” crossed the threshold and voted for Haavisto.
     
The Haavisto phenomenon has been explained as backlash to the victory of the Finns Party in the parliamentary elections of 2011, which rearranged the power structures of Finland’s political field in a completely new way.
      Haavisto undoubtedly got some Facebook “likes” as a result of this backlash, but he did not ride on this himself. On the contrary, in his campaign he made an effort to extend a hand to the Finns Party and to reconcile the divisions.
     
The side-effects of The Finns Party’s parliamentary election victory are troublesome: a previously unified nation is splitting into cliques whose extremes are moving further away from each other.
      There is no point in pining for the days of “consensus Finland”, but it would be disastrous for a small nation if it becomes impossible even to talk about issues among different groups.
     
In his thank you speech, Niinistö noted that the President needs to be “a President of all of the people”.
      He still has a way to go before that happens. Even though the historically large victory gives Niinistö a strong mandate, a sizeable part of the people living north of the cities of Southern Finland did not give their support to either man.
      Haavisto tried to use his mediation skills to make Finland more united.
      It is Niinistö’s task to continue this work.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 6.2.2012


See also:
  Spoiled ballots at a record level (6.2.2012)
  A third of voters steadfastly opposed to Haavisto; fewer reject Niinistö out of hand (1.2.2012)

Links:
  EDITORIAL: Haavisto success delivers liberal backlash to last year´s Finns Party seismic shock (24.1.2012)

MARKO JUNKKARI / Helsingin Sanomat
marko.junkkari@hs.fi