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Radnor Geopolitical Report
by Ilkka Ahtokivi
Helsinki
Actually, the answer is nothing! Exit polls show that the voters were amused but not swayed by Conan O'Brien's involvement. They were happy that Finland got a little more publicity in the U.S. But the Finns had more important issues in mind as they voted.
Two Workers’ Candidates in Finnish Presidential Elections
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 Niinistö of the National Coalition Party with 51.8 % of the vote, and by only 112,000 votes.
Finland's leader has a look-alike: Conan O'Brien of U.S. late-night TV
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, a sensitive issue in Finland, which seemed to play 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 by stating that with NATO-membership, Finland will be drawn to wars in 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, irritated a lot of the left-wing parties and leftist trade unions. 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 % a few days before the second election round.
Halonen, the candidate of the Social Democrats, the Left Alliance (ex-Communists) and the major trade union organization, the SAK, were in a good position in many ways. First of all, the Finns tend to be happy with people they think they are comfortable with, and are reluctant to change anything or anyone. Halonen's approval ratings in the polls during her first term were in North Korean proportions. She had successfully built 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 Halonen herself - were convinced that this would happen. Then they made the mistake of speaking about it in public in somewhat of an arrogant manner. As 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.
 Ilkka
Ahtokivi is Editor-in-Chief of a Finnish daily news magazine published on
the web which is so respected that it has caused an increase in demand for
Finnish translation services in Europe and North America.
Mr. Ahtokivi has been political secretary in Finland's National Coalition
Party, specializing in election campaigning and directing policy and
speech writing.
Since 1996 his main focus has been in consulting on use of the Internet in
political campaigns. He has worked extensively in Scandinavia and Italy.
His work in the U.S. is increasing.
Mr. Ahtokivi is a member of the Board of Directors of the International
Association of Political Consultants. A version of this article was
published in April on the web site of the European Association of
Political Consultants. |
This false sense of superiority and underestimation of the opponents - and ultimately the voters - proved nearly fatal. Halonen’s ratings started to fall during the last week of the first round of campaigns. This was a surprise to some since the polls conducted just before that week showed Halonen's ratings 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.
An outright win in the first round eluded Halonen because of misjudgements in her campaign and TV appearances (i.e. underestimating the opponents and the people, as well as her unfortunate comments), which nearly did her in. She did not improve her performance much in the TV debates with Niinistö during the second round of campaigns either. She even failed in facts, was very irritable, and did not let the other candidate finish his sentences. A habit average Finns really hate.
During the two weeks of the second round of campaigning, Niinistö was narrowing the gap up to the end. In advance voting (January 18-24) the results were 53.9 % for Halonen, and 46.1 % for Niinistö. Election day (January 29) votes were 50-50. Therefore 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 the Centre Party and National Coalition were able to work together despite their rivalry of right-wing hegemony. Also, maybe for the first time, the National Coalition Party's rank and file really and earnestly went to the streets for grassroots campaigning no matter how fierce the (arctic) weather.
We created a movement ("Niinistö-phenomenon") that we could not even control in the end. This is something that has maybe never been seen before in Finnish political campaigns. The reserved and taciturn Finns proved they have another side to their political will.
One stroke of genius in creating the movement was the idea of the campaign offices. They were not offices in the 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 were 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.
Another - somewhat peculiar - thing were the life size cardboard images of Mr. Niinistö as substitutes for the living person. We had used the cardboard images before (presidential election 1994) as merely an advertising element, but this time we were hesitant at first to use them. The popularity and demand of the images skyrocketed, however, 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."
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