Two Workers’ Candidates in Finnish Presidential Elections
February 2006• Finnland
by Ilkka Ahtokivi

President Tarja Halonen won a second six-year term in Finland's presidential run-off election by a thin margin on January 29. Halonen, the country's first woman president, beat off "conservative" challenger, Vice President of the European Investment Bank Sauli Niinisto of the National Coalition Party with 51.8 % of the vote, and with only 112 000 votes.
The left-wing president did not win an outright majority in the first round, where there were eight candidates. The most prominent were - of course - Halonen, Niinistö, and Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen of the Centre Party.
The president is largely involved with foreign policy, and both contenders offered very similar visions. Both advocated close ties with NATO, which seems to be a sensitive issue in Finland, and it played a big role in the campaign. And according to the writer, NATO was the key for Niinistö's defeat. He was considered to be more open to membership in the Western alliance, and the left was able to launch a campaign to scare people stating that with NATO-membership Finland will be drawn to wars who knows where.
Halonen campaigned as "the president for all the people" on a platform of equality and preserving the welfare state. Niinistö styled himself as a "workers' president", campaigning in favour of economic and social reforms to create jobs and ensure continued prosperity.

Against the odds
As is evident, we -the writer worked in Niinistö's campaign team -took risks from the start: talking about the NATO-issue, and a "conservative" banker campaigning as a workers' president. It irritated a lot the left-wing parties and leftist trade unions, and even our own troops were a bit perplexed at the start. But taking risks paid off. Niinistö got to the second round against the odds, and closed the opinion polls margin with Halonen from 70-30 % on October 2005 to 51-49 % few days before the second round election.
Halonen, the candidate of the Social Democrats, the Left Alliance (ex-Communists) and the major trade union organization, the SAK, was in a good position in many ways. First of all, the Finns tend to be happy with people they think they know, and are reluctant to change anything or anyone fitting this perception. Halonen's approval ratings in the polls during her first term were in North Korean proportions. She had successfully build an image of herself as "one of the people".
So Halonen was in a strong position to make history by winning outright in the first round with over 50 % of the direct popular vote. Halonen's campaign team - and even herself - were convinced that this will happen. Then they made a mistake to speak about it in public in somewhat arrogant manner. As the opinion polls looked good, Halonen declared that she was going for a win in the first round. Her campaign manager even went to the extent of urging people to vote for Halonen in order to save taxpayers' money.
This false sense of superiority and underestimating of the opponents -and ultimately the voters -proved nearly fatal. Halonen’s ratings started to fall during the last week of the first round campaigning. This was a surprise to some since the polls conducted just before that week showed Halonen's rating still clearly above 50 %.
Halonen got 46 % of the votes in the first round (on January 16). Niinistö was the most successful at narrowing the gap with Halonen. Polls ranked his support at about 20 % throughout the campaign, but his final tally was over 24 %. Matti Vanhanen got 18 % of the votes. Niinistö's success was based in presenting himself as the real alternative and the genuine challenger.
Outright win in the first round eluded Halonen because of misjudgements in her campaign (ie. underestimating the opponents and the people, and infortunate comments) and her TV appearances, which did not go very well for her. She did not improve much her performance in the TV debates with Niinistö during the second round campaign either. She even failed in facts, was very irritable, and did not let the other candidate finish his sentences. A habit average Finn really hates.
During the two weeks of second round campaigning Niinistö was narrowing the gap by the day. In advance voting (January 18-24) the result was 53.9 % for Halonen, and 46.1 % for Niinistö. Election day (January 29) votes were 50-50. So in all Halonen won 51.8 %-48.2 %.

Historical campaign
The campaign was in many ways historical. For the first time in many years right-wing parties closed ranks behind one candidate before the second round, and Centre Party and National Coalition were able to work together despite their rivalry of right-wing hegemony. Maybe for the first time also National Coalition Party's rank and file really and earnest went to the streets for grassroots work no matter what the (arctic) weather.
We were able to create a movement ("Niinistö-phenomenon"), which we were not even able to control in the end. A thing that has maybe never been seen in Finnish political campaigns. The reserved and taciturn Finns proved they have other side, too.
One stroke of genius in creating the movement were the campaign offices. They were not offices in traditional sense, but also cafés (Café Niinistö concept). We invited everybody - regardless of opinion - to visit the cafés and have a cup of coffee, read the daily papers, and surf the web while the campaign staff was doing their work in the same premises. The cafés turned out to be a tremendous success, and in the end there were nearly 100 of them all over the country.
An other -somewhat peculiar -thing was life size cardboard images of Mr. Niinistö as substitutes for the living person. We had done the cardboard images before (presidential election 1994) just as an advertising element, and this time we were at first lukewarm to using them. But the popularity and demand of the images skyrocketed, and in the end we made 130 of them. Women regardless of age (even some men) danced with them in discos and dance halls all over the country, and took thousands and thousands of photographs of themselves with "the candidate".
Even the media and the so called political analysts admitted that the Niinistö campaign was the best ever made in Finland. The left-wing campaign was run on very traditional lines, and one non-partisan observer put it quite accurately: "Halonen won despite of her campaign."
And, for the first time the defeated side did not consider itself defeated. The winners seemed to be more bitter, because the outright victory eluded them. We were left with a feeling that we put forward issues the country cannot escape in the future, but they had to be solved one way or the other. And Niinistö campaign also showed that you can make a difference, and involve people in politics, if you really set your mind to it.
Just few days after the election deputy director of the major trade union organization, the SAK, - which fiercely campaigned against Niinistö even with false accusations - admitted, that the campaign of Niinistö had the correct underlying message.
"After the emotional turmoil has subsided, one should be fair and state that Sauli Niinistö brought to the fore noteworthy aspects, which also the winning camp is advised to note", the deputy director wrote in a social democrat newspaper.
"It is a shame that the SAK made the misjudgement," Niinistö commented.