HELSINKI (MNI) – Finland on Sunday elected Sauli Niinisto, a member
of the country’s largest parliamentary party, to be the next president.
Niinisto easily beat his opponent, Pekka Haavisto, garnering a
handsome 62.6% of the vote. Niinisto is from the National Coalition
Party, which is the party of Finland’s Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen.
Niinisto is a moderate right-wing conservative and a firm supporter
of Finland’s membership in the euro area, having played a major role in
steering Finland into the Eurozone at the time. He has also been a
promoter of stronger fiscal discipline and integration.
The President is not a financial decision-maker in Finland’s
political system, but this election was nonetheless a vote of confidence
in the country’s pro-euro advocates at a time when they have been under
mounting pressure from the rise of the anti-Eurozone populist party True
Finns.
Both candidates who made it to the second round of the election are
supporters of the current pro-integration European policies. This could
be interpreted as a gradual shift in public opinion from the dynamic
that prevailed last year when the True Finns made huge gains to place
third in parliamentary elections. They are currently the largest
opposition party in parliament, since the two parties with more seats
are both in the country’s coalition government.
The apparent shift, however, may be somewhat diminished by the fact
that voter turnout in the second round of the presidential election
declined noticeably from the first.
Niinisto, a lawyer by education, has extensive experience handling
financial policies nationally and within the EU. He is best known as the
long-time finance minister of Finland, and later served as the vice
president of the European Investment Bank.
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