Maarika Kujanen and Tapio Raunio (Tampere University)
On 1 March Alexander Stubb, 55, takes office as the 13th president of Finland. Stubb was the candidate of the National Coalition (conservatives) and had previously served as a member of the European Parliament (2004-2008), foreign minister (2008-2011), minister for European affairs and trade (2011-2014), prime minister (2014-2015), and finance minister (2015-2016). Elected as the chair of the National Coalition in 2014, Stubb lost the leadership two years later to Petteri Orpo, who is currently prime minister, leading the right-wing coalition formed after the 2023 parliamentary elections. In 2017 Stubb was appointed as vice-president of the European Investment Bank and in 2020 he was chosen as the director and professor of the School of Transnational Governance at the European University Institute.
Well-known for his sports enthusiasm, with a notable track record in triathlon, Stubb has consistently advocated liberal policies and European integration, even though in his presidential election campaign Stubb very much downplayed his ‘federalist’ thinking, emphasizing instead the primacy of Finnish national interests. Before entering party politics, Stubb had one foot in academia, obtaining his PhD from LSE with a thesis on differentiated integration that was subsequently published by Palgrave.
Cautious campaign, predictable results
The Finnish president can be elected for two consecutive six-year terms. The direct elections consist of one or two rounds. A second round is held between two top candidates if none of the candidates receives more than half of the votes in the first round. Stubb is the fourth directly elected president in Finland, as the two-round direct elections were first used in 1994. Before that, the president was elected by an electoral college of 300 members.
The 2024 campaign took place in the new context of NATO membership. Putin’s war in Ukraine has had a dramatic impact on Finnish security policy, with Finland seeking NATO membership in May 2022 and joining the defence alliance in April 2023. NATO membership was accepted almost unanimously in the Eduskunta, the unicameral national legislature, underlining the continued importance of consensus in foreign and security policy. However, consensus did not extend to domestic politics. The parliamentary elections of April 2023 had resulted in a victory for the political right, and the Orpo government – which brings together the National Coalition, the nationalist Finns Party, the Swedish People’s Party, and the Christian Democrats – has been described as the most right-wing in Finnish history. The government aims at large cuts to public sector funding and weakening the influence of trade unions, and in recent months there has been a range of anti-government activities from various types of industrial action to public demonstrations and sit-in protests at university campuses.
Domestic policy issues falling under the competence of the government were present also in the election debates. Many candidates even indicated that as a president they would intervene in some of these issues as a ‘values leader’. In general, however, the debates focused mainly on foreign and security policy – an area belonging to the president’s constitutional prerogatives. No major differences emerged between the leading candidates over foreign policy, and the candidates were cautious not to make any statements deviating from the status quo.
Pekka Haavisto, a candidate of a constituency association but supported by the Greens, ran for president for the third time, after finishing second in the 2012 and 2018 elections. Both Stubb and Haavisto were liberal candidates with substantial experience in foreign policy (Haavisto was the foreign minister in Sanna Marin’s government 2019–2023). In presidential elections, the candidates must appeal to a large group of voters across party boundaries, which clearly impacted both Stubb’s and Haavisto’s campaigns, fading their differences. Still, Stubb seemed to appeal to voters from center and right to conservatives, while Haavisto was presumably the most popular candidate among the left-wing voters.
Stubb and Haavisto dominated the election polls throughout the campaign. Stubb had a leading position in the polls from November 2023, yet the gap between Stubb and Haavisto narrowed as the first round on January 28 approached. The polls were closely followed, and there were discussions about their impact on voters in terms of tactical voting, i.e., when voters choose a candidate against their first preference to influence the election outcome.
Turnout was 75 percent in the first round, the highest since the 2000 elections. Of the nine candidates, Stubb received 27,2 percent of the votes cast in the first round and Haavisto received 25,8 percent. Jussi Halla-aho, a Finns Party candidate whose support rose significantly in the last polls before the election day, finished third with 19 percent of the votes. Turnout fell to 70,7 percent in the second round on 11 February. This time, Stubb received 51,6 percent of the votes and the difference between Stubb and Haavisto was only 3,2 percentage points, the smallest in the second round in the history of direct popular elections. In the end, the election polls predicted quite accurately that Stubb and Haavisto would make it to the second round and that Stubb would emerge as a winner.
Will Stubb stay above party-political disputes?
During the campaign Stubb focused strongly on ‘statespersonship’, stating that the president represents the whole country and all citizens. He also argued that the president should stay above party-political disputes. Constitutionally, the government is responsible for domestic and EU policies, while the president directs foreign policy together with the government. The president is also the commander-in-chief of the defence forces.
Presidents have by and large respected this division of authority between the two executives, but for example the outgoing president Sauli Niinistö did occasionally comment on economy. Politics in Finland is currently very heated, with strong words exchanged between the government and the leftist parties and trade unions. Stubb will no doubt be asked about the economy, immigration, internal security, and other domestic politics issues in interviews, and it remains to be seen whether he manages to stay neutral. Considering Stubb’s background and strong personal interest in the EU, he may also be tempted to intervene in European affairs, especially as the Orpo government is internally divided over the EU. Finnish presidents are highly popular compared with their counterparts in other countries, and this potentially strengthens the hand of the president in disputes with the government and the Eduskunta. However, such disputes might at the same time undermine cooperation in foreign policy leadership.
During the campaign there were references to ‘NATO president’, implying that the president is responsible for security and defence issues. Yet also NATO questions fall under the requirement of co-leadership in foreign policy. As a result, the president cannot alone change the direction of Finland’s foreign relations. Interestingly, currently the National Coalition occupies all important positions in foreign policy decision-making: the president, the prime minister, foreign minister, and defence minister. National Coalition was the only Eduskunta party to explicitly support NATO membership prior to spring 2022, a stance it adopted in 2006, but now essentially all parties are supportive of the defence alliance. Bilateral relations with Russia remain frozen, and Stubb has pledged continuity in Finland’s foreign and security policy.
The views expressed in this blog post are the position of the author and not necessarily those of the Brexit Institute blog.