Finland’s next president will be either Alexander Stubb or Pekka Haavisto. The conservative former head of government and the Green ex-foreign minister of the EU and NATO country received the most votes of all nine candidates in the first round of the Finnish presidential election on Sunday. After all votes were counted, Stubb got 27.2 percent, Haavisto 25.8 percent. Her closest rival, the right-wing populist parliament speaker Jussi Halla-aho, achieved 19 percent. Since none of the candidates achieved an absolute majority, there will be a runoff election between Stubb and Haavisto on February 11th.
“This was the semi-final and it now looks like me and Pekka are in the final. Then the game starts all over again,” said 55-year-old Stubb on election evening in Helsinki, when projections were already clearly pointing to a runoff election . Haavisto, 65, pointed out that in the second round of voting, almost half of voters would have to choose a new candidate. Now we’re going into round two at full speed.
The winner of the runoff election is scheduled to take over on March 1st from the popular incumbent President Sauli Niinistö, who was not allowed to run for office again after two six-year terms. Under his leadership and under the impression of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Finland decided in 2022 to apply for membership in NATO after decades of military non-alignment. In April 2023, the Nordic country, which borders Russia for 1,340 kilometers, became the 31st member of the defense alliance.
In Finland, the president is directly elected by the people for a six-year term. One of its most important tasks is to decide on foreign and security policy together with the government, to appoint the government and to approve laws.