Tarja Halonen elected to second term as President after close race

Victory over challenger Sauli Niinistö cemented by weaker turnout in Centre Party strongholds

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Tarja Halonen, the candidate of the Social Democrats and the Left Alliance, has been re-elected for a second six-year term as Finland's President of the Republic. With all the votes counted, Halonen had an advantage of just under 113,000 votes over the challenger Sauli Niinistö of the National Coalition Party.
      Niinistö performed better on the day than during advance voting, and in fact he gained a few hundred more votes than Halonen in Sunday's poll, but Niinistö's late rally was insufficient to close the gap on the incumbent Halonen. She secured 51.8 percent of the total votes cast in the runoff, against 48.2 percent for Niinistö. Voter turnout was 77.1 percent, a drop of around three percentage points on the figure for the second round in 2000.
     
The advance voting in the election gave Halonen 53.9 percent of the votes, compared with 46.1 percent for Niinistö. Commentators already felt this gave Niinistö a mountain to climb, in spite of the fact that many of those who chose to vote on election day said they were still unsure of their choice.
      Niinistö effectively conceded defeat shortly after 20:30, by which time around four-fifths of the votes had been counted, and the Finnish Broadcasting Company's projection had called the election for Halonen. She preferred to wait a further half-hour before accepting his congratulations.
     
Halonen thanked Niinistö for putting up such a strong fight. In the end, the result was almost as tight as in the contest between Halonen and the Centre Party candidate Esko Aho six years ago. Halonen won then by 51.6 percent to 48.4 percent.
      During the past six years, she has enjoyed stellar approval ratings, and only some months ago very few would have imagined such a close-fought contest would emerge, or that Halonen would even have needed a second round of voting to secure a new term.
     
Early analyses indicate that the result pivoted on the fact that the Niinistö camp did not capture enough of the Centre Party votes made available after the dismissal in the first round of Prime Minister and Centre Party Chairman Matti Vanhanen.
      Voters in the strong Centre Party areas were considerably more passive about going to the polls than in other parts of the country.
      Both candidates had gone to great lengths to persuade the public of their "rural" credentials, and the Centre Party leadership, including Vanhanen himself, had thrown their support behind Niinistö.
      It has also been suggested that Sauli Niinistö's more obvious pro-NATO stance on the foreign policy front may have hampered his chances of overhauling Halonen.
     
The election result may have some ramifications for the 2007 Parliamentary Elections.
      The moderate conservative National Coalition Party, now in opposition, can for example take heart from the good showing of their candidate, while the position of the Centre Party - currently the largest grouping in Parliament - will naturally be a topic of discussion among the political pundits.
      As such, the election of a new President will have no immediate consequences for the SDP-Centre Party-Swedish People's Party governing coalition.
     
Tarja Kaarina Halonen, 62, will be formally sworn in on March 1st. It will nevertheless be business as usual this week, as she will attend the opening of Parliament on Friday and will then travel to Germany for an informal weekend meeting of seven European presidents.
      Sauli Niinistö, meanwhile, has said he will be returning to his post at the European Investment Bank and that he now wishes to take a rest from politics.
     
     
Votes cast (100.0% counted):
     
      Tarja Halonen 51.8% (1,630,833 votes)
      Sauli Niinistö 48.2% (1,517,947 votes)
     
     
The voter turnout figure of 77.1% includes only those voters in Finland. When the votes of Finnish citizens abroad are included, the figure falls to 74.0%. 
      Voter turnout (in Finland) rose from 73.9% in the first round.
      In 2000, the figures for the first and second rounds (voters in Finland only) were 76.9% and 80.2% respectively.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  BACKGROUND: Finland´s Presidents

Links:
  Ministry of Justice: Results of 2nd Round, Presidential Election 2006
  The President of the Republic of Finland
  Tarja Halonen (Wikipedia)

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