Written by Ann Kaulanen
HELSINKI (Reuters) – Maintaining friendly relations with Russia was once a key task for Finland’s president, but Sunday’s selection of a new leader signals an unprecedented hardening of attitudes toward the former neighbor. It will be.
Political analysts say Finland’s presidential candidates have been aggressively campaigning against Russia during the campaign, aiming to please voters who perceive Russia’s actions toward its neighbors as hostile and aggressive. They are competing to show the toughest stance.
Finns are furious about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and are concerned about the surge in migrants arriving in Finland via Russia. As a result, the Nordic country closed its entire 1,340-kilometre (830-mile) border with Russia to passenger traffic.
“If in the past the aim was to compete to see who had the best relations with Russia and who was best at negotiating and interpreting Russian politics, now the competition is against Russia and There’s probably a shift to who has the strongest stance on defense policy as well,” Johanna Vuorelma, a political scientist at the University of Helsinki, told Reuters.
The President of Finland works closely with the government to lead foreign and security policy, represents the country at NATO meetings, and serves as the Supreme Commander of the Finnish Defense Forces.
The Nordic country was admitted to the Western Defense Alliance last year, ending seven decades of military non-alignment and drawing threats of “countermeasures” from Moscow.
The new president will replace Sauli Niinist, who retired and was nicknamed the “Putin Whisperer” because of his close ties to the Russian leader.
border concerns
Center-right National Union leader Alexander Stubbe, who is the frontrunner in opinion polls, said the next president would not only be Finland’s first NATO president but also “in many senses a Western president”.
“The way I see it is that it’s leaning heavily toward the West,” Stubbe told Reuters in a Jan. 12 interview.
The Finnish Party’s Nationalist candidate Jussi Halaaho, who is rising to third place in the polls, has taken the toughest stance on Russia, trying to catch up with Stubbe and liberal candidate Pekka Haavisto.
Halaaho, an EU critic and anti-immigrant hardliner, has publicly called Russia a “rogue state” and wants dual Russian-Finnish nationals stripped of their Finnish citizenship.
Former pro-European Prime Minister Stubb joined Halaaho and two other right-wing candidates in a recent election debate to support the idea of revoking dual citizenship.
Halaaho also called for tough measures in response to what Helsinki called Moscow’s gathering of migrants on Finland’s border in retaliation for Finland’s NATO membership and increased defense cooperation with the United States.
Although the Kremlin denies the accusations, Finland is worried that Russia will begin to usher migrants into the vast forests that cover much of the vast border the two countries share, similar to what happened on the border between Poland and Belarus. I am concerned that this may be the case.
“Unless we are prepared to force resistance at the border, that is, refuse to accept asylum applications from people who are unlikely to be in urgent need of international protection,” Halaaho said in a televised debate on Tuesday. “No,” he said in a soft tone. Refers to Polish border guards’ practice of pushing migrants back across the border into Belarus.
Poll leaders Stubbe and Haavisto did not mention opposition, but expressed support for securing the border with coercive measures if necessary.
Juhana Aunesluoma, professor of political history at the University of Helsinki, said the president’s role in leading Finland’s entry into NATO is uncharted territory that will be shaped and defined by the election winner.
“There are real concerns about what the so-called parliamentary cover for Finland’s NATO policy is. That is, to what extent can Parliament supervise Finland’s NATO policy,” he said.
(Reporting by Anne Kaulanen in Helsinki; Editing by Toby Chopra)