Finland’s former prime minister Alexander Stubb and the country’s former foreign minister Pekka Haavisto appear to be on course to go through to the second round of the presidential elections.
As polls closed at 8pm local time and election day vote counting got under way, figures published by Finland’s justice department showed that among advance voters, Mr Stubb, of the centre-right National Coalition party, was in the lead with 27.3 per cent.
In second place was liberal candidate Mr Haavisto, a member of the Green Party who is running as an independent, with 25.8 per cent.
In third place was Jussi Halla-aho, the former leader of the far-right Finns party, with 19 per cent.
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The high-stakes election, the first since Finland joined Nato, to replace two-term president Sauli Niinistö, had record turnout among advance voters.
More than 44.6 per cent of those who were able to vote in advance did so – the equivalent of more than 1.9 million people.
At 9pm local time, Finnish broadcaster YLE published its prediction of the final result, projecting that Stubb would win with 27.3 per cent, followed by Haavisto in second place with 25.8 per cent. Halla-aho was not projected to go through, having won a projected 19 per cent of the vote.
“This is more than I dared to believe,” Mr Stubb (55) told YLE.
“We made it to the second round. That is now clear,” Mr Haavisto (65) told the crowd at his election party in Helsinki on Sunday night. “I am very happy and satisfied. We have worked hard for this.”
A run-off between the two top candidates will be held in two weeks’ time, on February 11th. To be declared president, the winning candidate must receive more than 50 per cent of votes.
After a last-minute surge by Mr Halla-aho, liberals had feared there could be two right-wing candidates in the second round. But early results suggested that was unlikely.
“I am concerned, but now we have to follow the will of the voters,” Mr Haavisto, who would be Finland’s first out gay and Green president, told the Observer on Friday at a campaign event.
Taking place against a backdrop of escalating geopolitical drama on the border with Russia, Finland’s first election since joining Nato is seen as the most high stakes in living memory.
The president – who is head of state and commander-in-chief of the army and is responsible for foreign policy, in co-operation with the government – represents Finland at Nato summits and in meetings with international leaders, so is seen as crucial to the country’s future direction.
Mr Stubb, who was prime minister from 2014 to 2015 and has previously spent eight years in government, told the Guardian on Friday that he came out of political retirement because of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
He said: “Having been in government for eight consecutive years and having held all the key portfolios, I felt in 2016 that I had very much done it for God and country, as they say. My plan was not to return to politics, or certainly not to national politics ... but Putin’s attack on Ukraine changed it.”
In the current climate, he said, foreign and security policy was “existential” for Finland, which has closed its entire land border with Russia.
After joining Nato at record speed last April, he said Finland was entering “a new age in Finnish foreign policy”.
He said: “When it became evident, right at the beginning of the war, that our path towards the alliance would begin, I felt strongly that this is a new age in Finnish foreign policy and perhaps I could throw my hat into the ring once again.”
The election so far has centred largely on international and security issues, including Russia, Ukraine, Gaza, the US elections and Finland’s Nato membership. But, in the past few weeks, debates between the nine candidates had focused more on domestic issues, benefiting the Finns party candidate. – Guardian
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