Finnish Presidental Elections

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Well, the time for the finnish presidental elections is ahead and I'll be likely to go and vote tomorrow. Since we seem to have a few Finns around here I thought it might be a good idea to create a thread where everyone can tell their thoughts about the candidates and the position of the president in general. All non-Finns are allowed to participate too of course.

In any case I'll list the candidates and say my opinions about them all.

Tarja Halonen is of course the current president and the one who will almost certainly win. She is the official candidate of the "left-wing" parties, that is the socialdemocrats and the left alliance. She seems to be very popular among the people even though I personally can't stand her. She has expirience from foreign politics having been the foreign minister before her presidency. Just being a social democrat is enough to make me not like her, but she has made plenty of statements that I can't really agree with. The far worst being when she said that Finnish peacekeeping troops could not be sent abroad without a UN mandate, which I find to be just stupid and absurd. Luckily the idea was shot down by the prime minister and she backed down from it.

Matti Vanhanen is the candidate of the center party. His party still pretty much lives up to its old name as a agricultural party being popular in less densely populated areas. He's as uncharismatic as they get and I really can't stand the decentralized politics of the center party spreading all sorts of government facilities all around the country when we can't really afford it.The guy is also the prime minister currently so it almost seems as his party put him up to this election only because they lacked a better candidate.

Sauli Niinistö is the candidate of the National Coaltion Party which is the biggest right-wing party of Finland. He's the one I'll probably vote for. He did well as the minister of finances some years ago from now and allthough he lacks the expirience in foreign politics his views seems to be closest to mine.

Heidi Hautala is the candidate of the Green Party. She's not an option for me. The thing that bothers me about the green party is people like her. Protecting the enviorment is good and all but one country can't bear the burden itself if others are not willing to help carrying it.

Bjarne Kallis is the candidate for Christian Democrats. I really can't get myself to support a candidate of a religiously themed party.

Henrik Lax is the candidate of the Swedish People's Party. He seems like a nice guy with some very decent ideas but he has no chance of winning and lacks in expirience.

Timo Soini is the candidate of the Truefinns, a populist right-wing party. Calling the EU the new Soviet Union, demanding the return of Karelia and all kinds of absurd BS that this guy keeps throwing gets him to the top of my "candidates I'm least likely to vote for" list.

Arto Lahti, independent. The guy seems to have some good input to finances but he's noncharismatic and has absolutely no expirience of foreign policy, he also wants negotiations for the return of Karelia. Being independent I doubt he recieves even 1% of the votes but I would never the less not vote for him, possibly in the parliamentary elections he might be a possibility because his financial competence might have more value, he almost certainly would have to choose a party though, running as independent is very difficult in Finland.

Finally as I said Tarja Halonen will probably win, possibly on the first round. Niinistö and Vanhanen will recieve a reasonable support but the rest of the candidates really don't stand a chance. Most of them are just picking up the campaign money and using it as advertisement for the next parliamentary elections.

 

I'd certainly vote for Tarja Turunen. Oh, sorry, I had to say it (shame on me for making bad jokes).

Now, seriously, what's wrong with previous UN approval (or mandate, like you said)? And it's interesting how they hide an institution's true purpose by changing its name, like in "peacekeeping troops". Bah.

About the green candidate, we're having an issue with our neighbour, Uruguay, because of a pair of new paper fabrics. Their owners come from your country and Spain too. It is said that it will cause a great impact on nature; perhaps this Heidi girl knows how to deal with this problem? What about the smell in the air and lake contamination? What does she say?

I'm interested in a word you used, "experience". In politics, I think it means "contacts". Is that a good thing? Having different contacts means, in my opinion, that certain areas will be more favored than others, nothing more.
But if you think experience in actually being there and doing the things by yourself, there comes another problem. I think your country isn't a strong "independent" country, like, say Germany or the US. In that position, experience seems like doing what you're told to do. Maybe it's too an extreme point of view.

As a final note, the comparison of the old Russia and the EU ain't that bad, for me at least. Think of it as an opposed force to the US. Or maybe a centralized power that directs internal affairs of surrounding countries.

 

For me the least bad choice is Halonen. I can't personally remember any major screwups from her. None of the candidates are particularly appealing to me, though, and truth be known I haven't kept up with politics as much as would probably be in my best interest.

Niinistö has this "working class president" -thing going, and I think that's a crock of bull. His party represents the rich. They might dress it up from time to time, but they've been taking the public services down to lower taxes and that sort of thing.

Vanhanen...This is just silly, but I can't help thinking there's something fishy about a guy who *never* drinks! His party is mostly concerned with farmers, and I'm a city dweller.

The smaller parties have no realistic chances. I don't like the kind of system where a handful of parties can grow so big and each can only sport one candidate. While the people are the ones to vote, the leaders of each party get to limit the realistic choices quite a bit, and in part make the choices for us.

Soini or anybody of that bunch I would never vote for. Nor the Christians.

Edit:

As an opposing force to the US, sure, not a bad thing. But I think they're referring to the Soviet Union being a totalitarian system, and accusing the EU of the same.

 

Saying that the National Coalition Party represents the rich is as old as saying that the Socialdemocrats represents the unions. In any case I would fully agree that the "working class president" -line was bad, but it's just advertisement and not worthy enough of paying much attention to.

Because a UN approval means a Chinese approval, a Russian approval, a French approval, a UK approval and a US approval. I don't think any of these countries should have any power in saying when we send out peacekeeping troops. Giving them a mandate over our peacekeeping policy would be just completely moronic.

 

Ho, I know I'm not making very much sense, but for me a candidate being a woman has a value in itself. This is because I believe that the president's role in Finland has changed so much so that her political weight is lessened in importance but the cultural influence has emphasized. The president here is nowadays more a rolemodel than ever before and with the society still being as patriarhcal as it is, I don't think that we need anymore male rolemodels as much as we need female rolemodels. So that narrows it down to Hautala and Halonen.

As a soon-to-be prominent biologist (yeah right), I'm always leaning in the direction of the Green Party, so I'm voting Hautala on the first round. Since I don't believe her to go to the second round, guess who I'm voting on the second round?

 

There are lots of Finnish people here! Amazing.

Just to clarify, Morgoroth, where would you send these peacekeeping troops? To another country? I guess so, otherwise you'd just use regular police. Maybe this is obvious to you, but after all the US has done lately... I don't know what to think anymore. It's a not very smart question, I know, but I thought all those northern countries (Sweden and Norway) were rather peaceful.

 

What the thing that US is doing also showed is that all the permanent members in the UN will not allways agree. Finland has peacekeeping troops in Kosovo and Afganistan and while I do not know about Sweden I do know that Norway has troops in Afganistan too, just ask Mollusken I think he served in there. In the future EU might have to decide about peacekeeping themselves since you can't really allways count on a Chinese and a Russian approval. It's not a ideal situation to act if one of the permanent members object to it but I certainly do not want a law binding our decision to the will of these countries.

 

For anybody who cares, the first round is over with Halonen at the lead. The second round is between Halonen and Niinistö.