Poll: Who is morally suitable to be President?

A week ago we published a story on a survey of Finnish moral standards. As a follow-up we look at how Finns assess the morality of their presidential candidates.

Sauli Niinistö

Timo Soini

Paavo Väyrynen

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By Unto Hämäläinen
     
      With ten weeks to go before the first round of Finland’s presidential elections, Finns must now decide for the second time within a year who is worthy of their vote.
      Finnish presidential elections are exceptional Finland in many ways. Previous elections have shown that a significant proportion of voters in presidential elections care little about the party affiliation of their candidate. Recent poll numbers suggest as much as well. The results hardly correlate at all with support given to the parties.
      We must also remember those more than 300,000 voters who cast ballots only in presidential elections. The voter turnout in presidential elections has been nearly 80 per cent – over ten percentage points more than in parliamentary elections.
     
Many voters say that they vote for a person and not a party, even though all of the candidates are put forward by parties.
      So on what basis do people make their choice?
      Those who want to push the party and politics aside need to examine the candidates in a different light. Then the question is not about the candidate’s view on supporting Greece, or Finnish membership in NATO. Instead, people start thinking about the much-talked about image. How does a candidate look on television or in press photographs? Is the candidate be sufficiently distinguished to serve as president? How well does the candidate do in quizzes and other games?
     
Another option is to start measuring the candidates on the same scales that we use to evaluate people who are close to us, like friends, colleagues, bosses, or customers.
      How does the candidate behave? Does the candidate have a reputation as a trustworthy and honest person? Is there something in his or her past that is not acceptable in some way?
      These are everyday questions of morality that are terribly difficult to answer. There is a big danger of error in them. How many times have we ended up being disappointed in people?
     
The polling agency TNS Gallup asked more than 1,000 Finns to answer these difficult questions in mid-October.
      Respondents were asked to take a stand on presidential candidates in three different areas of life – family and the couple relationship, working life, and overall societal morals, such as adherence to the law and attitudes toward the consumption of alcohol, for instance.
      Before they were asked to take a stand on the presidential candidates, they were asked to give their own moral views from these three areas of life. These results came out a week earlier.
     
On questions concerning the presidential candidates, respondents were expected to name those candidates who they thought were morally exemplary in each of the areas of life.
      It should be emphasised that a third did not answer these questions. This suggests at least two things. Some of the voters do not know enough about the candidates’ moral standards to venture an opinion. There are also many voters who do not want to make moral judgements.
      Declining to answer is a decision that needs to be respected, but fortunately a sufficient number of answers were given.
     
The results indicate that on questions of family and relationships, nearly all candidates got more approval than in any other areas of life.
      The research report says: “One could say that the strengths of the candidates would include that of being exemplary in questions of family and relationships.”
      It would seem that Finns are accepting of many types of couple relationships. Timo Soini, (True Finn) Sauli Niinistö, (Nat. Coalition Party), Paavo Väyrynen, (Centre Party), Paavo Lipponen (SDP), and Sari Essayah (Christian Democrat) are married.
      Eva Biaudet (Swed. People’s Party) and Paavo Arhinmäki cohabit with their partners, and Pekka Haavisto lives in a registered same-sex partnership.
     
However, it is also possible to draw the conclusion from the results that marriage continues to have a relatively staunch position in the minds of the Finnish people.
      Biaudet, Arhinmäki, and Haavisto are at the bottom of the list.
      What should we make of Pekka Haavisto’s being left at the tail end of the comparison?
     
In the part of the poll that was published last week it was said that two thirds of Finns are accepting of a relationship between people of the same gender, and that only one in four do not accept it at all.
      However, Finns would not seem to be quite as tolerant with respect to presidential candidates. Haavisto, who lives in a registered partnership, gets the approval of only one fifth of respondents in matters concerning the family and relationships.
     
Sauli Niinistö and Timo Soini were at the top of the list when respondents were asked which of the candidates were exemplary in morality concerning working life. The other candidates come slightly behind Niinistö and Soini, and the differences are so small as to fall within the margin of error.
      The biggest differences in the study emerged when respondents were asked which presidential candidates are exemplary in matters of societal morality.
      The familiar duo, Niinistö and Soini, were clearly on top, with Haavisto in third place. However, two people on the list are worth singling out for comparison.
     
Niinistö is the overwhelming front-runner. More than a third of respondents would find him acceptable in questions of societal morality.
      Correspondingly, at the tail end of the list is political veteran Paavo Väyrynen. Only 17 per cent of respondents considered him to be exemplary in this respect.
      Respondents were not asked for the reasons for their choices, but it is likely that Väyrynen’s long career of more than 40 years in day-to-day politics might be pushing his reputation downward. Väyrynen, if anyone, is a politician who raises strong emotions both for and against.
     
Although the questions of morality were non-political, the respondents were also asked their party affiliation.
      The results indicate that party affiliation influences what kind of attitude is taken on the moral qualities of the candidates.
      In the opinion of supporters of the National Coalition Party, Niinistö is the best candidate in terms of morals, while Social Democrats preferred Lipponen, True Finns supporters favoured Soini, Centre Party supporters preferred Väyrynen, and Green voters liked Haavisto.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 14.11.2011


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Crossing the line: a survey on Finnish moral standards (8.11.2011)

See also:
  Presidential poll: Niinistö remains overwhelming front-runner, Väyrynen support rising (15.11.2011)

UNTO HÄMÄLÄINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
unto.hamalainen@hs.fi