Making or breaking Finland’s future
A behind-the-façade look at the 2024 election
Since 2023, Finland has been led by the most far-right government since 1945. The past economic success is past. The NATO membership is increasing security costs and risks. Risks hover over and above the “last welfare state standing.”
IN the past, the tiny Nordic country of 5.5 million people was seen as a bastion of stability, unity and neutrality, a sort of frosty Santa Claus-land. Today, only the cold weather remains.
In January, nine candidates ran for the Finnish presidency. The conservative former prime minister Alexander Stubb, 55, led the first round with 27 percent of the votes, while Pekka Haavisto, 65, Finland’s top diplomat in 2019-2023, took second place with 26 percent. On Sunday, the final race was between the two, with Stubb dominating (54 percent) and Haavisto as second (46 percent) in the polls.
A Green League politician, Haavisto battled twice for the presidency against conservative Sauli Niinistö. Despite failures, his broad-based support has steadily increased, particularly among Finnish youth and women. Openly gay, the Finnish top diplomat has represented the UN in multiple tasks since 1999 and many hot spots. Seen as consensus-seeking and very knowledgeable, he enjoys great regard among the Finns.
Haavisto is likely to garner significant support from the SocialDemocrats and the Left Alliance and some from the Center Party. But to win, he’d need more. As the country has shifted far-right, his constituencies aren’t as powerful as those behind Stubb. The star of the Conservative Party (KOK) has risen fast since 2008 with various ministerial posts and as prime minister in 2014, until his controversial conservative policies cut his popularity. After stints in EU offices, he made a comeback in the presidential race. But his track record has holes: repeated allegations of favoritism, disconcerting gaffes, allegations of personal promotion and the conservatives’ secretive NATO process. (see https://worldfinancialreview. com/making-or-breaking-finlandsfuture-a-behind-the-facade-look-atfinland-after-the-2024-election/)
As the tensions in Finland, today a “NATO member,” and its borders are rising, Stubb has sold his neoliberal structural reforms and himself as a “NATO president,” who will allow nuclear weapons in Finnish territory in the name of “security.”
Though selling himself as a “unifying force,” he, his party and its cooperation with the far-right have divided the country dramatically.
Most far-right govt since 1945
When the Economist asked, “Which economy did the best in 2023?” Finland ranked at the very end of the 35-country comparison. S&P Global Ratings has applauded Finland’s “energy diversification away from Russia,” but it expects economic activity in Finland to be “broadly
flat” and not pick up until 2026.
Led by Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, the cabinet is dominated by conservatives and far-right Finns, coupled with the small Swedish and Christian-Democrat parties. As soon as it started its work, political turmoil ensued. At first, the far-right minister of economic affairs Vilhelm Junnila got caught for statements proposing “climate abortions” in “underdeveloped Africa.” He was replaced by the far-right Wille Rydman, who was mired in a sexual harassment scandal and had texted racist messages about