2024-01-28 07:56:05
After twelve years under the popular President Sauli Niinistö, Finland has begun electing a new head of state. In the first round of the presidential election on Sunday, nine candidates were in the race to succeed Niinistö, who was not allowed to run again after two six-year terms in office.
The polling stations will be open until 8:00 p.m. local time (7:00 p.m. CET) on election day. However, almost 1.9 million people – 44 percent of eligible voters living in Finland – have already voted early by post. A provisional election result should be known later in the evening.
It was not expected that one of the candidates would win straight away. If none of them receives more than half of the votes in the first round, there will be a runoff between the two strongest candidates in two weeks. The new president is scheduled to take over from Niinistö on March 1.
Surveys predicted that the conservative former head of government Alexander Stubb and the green former foreign minister Pekka Haavisto had the best chances. In the last survey by the radio station Yle before election day, the right-wing populist parliamentary speaker Jussi Halla-aho and the former EU currency commissioner Olli Rehn also made gains.
The president in Finland is elected for a six-year term. It plays a more active political role than in many other European countries. His most important tasks include deciding, together with the government, the country’s foreign and security policy, appointing the government and approving laws. However, he largely stays out of domestic politics.
Under the impression of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, Finland decided in 2022 to apply for membership in NATO after decades of military freedom from alliance. In April 2023, the EU’s northernmost country became the 31st member of the defense alliance. For the Finns, whose country borders Russia for 1,340 kilometers, this represented a major turning point.
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