Leading candidates Alexander Stubbe and Pekka Haavisto won on Sunday in the second round of Finland’s presidential election, which was held against the backdrop of worsening relations with neighboring Russia.
According to election authorities, after all votes were counted, former Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb, a conservative, received 27.2% of the vote, while former Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, running as an independent from the Green Party, secured 25.8%. .
Voter turnout was 71.5%.
Photo: AFP
The two candidates are scheduled to face each other in the runoff election on February 11th.
“I’m confident that whoever we face in the second round will be able to have a good, constructive and civilized discussion about the difficult issues of foreign policy,” Stubb told public broadcaster Yale earlier.
Although the president’s powers are limited, the head of state, who also serves as commander-in-chief of the Finnish armed forces, works with the government to help direct foreign policy. This means that the changing geopolitical situation in Europe will be the main concern for the winners.
Hanna Ojanen, director of political studies at Tampere University, said when the results were announced: “Looking at the two people who made it to the next round, foreign policy experience might be what people were looking for.” .
In the lead-up to the vote, experts believed that Jussi Halaaho, a candidate from the far-right Finland Party, might advance to the second round. He came in third place with 19 percent of the vote.
Voter Hannu Kushti said the country needed a president with “leadership” and “humanity”.
“Of course you have to be tough when you need to be,” he added.
Finland ended decades of military non-alignment and joined NATO in April last year as relations between Moscow and Helsinki soured following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Russia, which shares a 1,340km border with Finland, immediately warned of “countermeasures”.
By August last year, Finland saw an influx of migrants entering the country through its eastern border without visas. Helsinki claimed Moscow was pushing hybrid attacks on migrants to destabilize and Finland closed its eastern border in November.
“We are now in Russia, especially [Russian President] “President Vladimir Putin is using humans as weapons,” Stubb said in the final televised debate Thursday night. “This is an immigration issue, a callous and cynical move, in which the safety of Finland must come first.”
Haavisto said Finland needed to “send a clear message to Russia that this cannot continue.”
After the Cold War, Helsinki maintained good relations with Moscow.
Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö, who is stepping down after two six-year terms, once took pride in his close relationship with Putin before becoming one of his harshest critics. Against this backdrop, presidential candidates are defending both Finland’s independence and its new role as a NATO member, said Hanna Wass, deputy dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki.
“They all seem to have strong ideas about self-sufficiency,” Wass said.
Both candidates added that they believe that Finland “should actively contribute to building a common European defense and Nordic cooperation.”
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