Short notes on Stubb presidency

As the presidential election recedes, politics returns towards normality. For instance, the Centre party head Annikka Saarikko is resigning, and this has initiated speculation on who is going to follow her. Whoever it is, it is going to be a tough hoe to row, despite their party candidate’s satisfactory performance in the election. However, here, I will still mostly just concentrate on the new president.

Alexander Stubb was elected with 51,6 % of the vote; a margin that is not ultra-tight but a commanding one either, particularly considering that most polls for the preceding week had promised that he would get 56-54 % of the vote. Most likely result for the discrepancy was that many of the populist Finns Party voters, particularly in the countryside, jus plaint ended up staying home instead of voting between two pro-European liberal candidates they dislike, particularly bolstered in this decision by the chilly weather of the election day.

The margin was tight enough for many Haavisto supporters to decide that the main lesson is that Finland is still homophobic; if only Haavisto had been in a straight marriage or relationship, he would have been elected. This has been bolstered by a poll showing that 40 % of Stubb’s voters gave Haavisto’s relationship as one of the reasons why they voted for Stubb; jury is still out how important it ended up being, considering that half a year ago Haavisto was winning in polls quite handily, and surely his relationship status is old news now.

Many other discussions, too, have focused on Haavisto losing more than Stubb winning. Some have wondered if the refusal of left-wing parties to vote for Fins Party candidate Jussi Halla-aho to continue as the speaker of the parliament might have played a part. Some leftists think that what would have brought Haavisto over the finishing line would have been catering more to the left (unlikely; such catering would have just pushed the rightward supporters out).

I do not think this election was as much Haavisto’s to lose as Stubb’s to win. I, for one, had thought that Stubb was a political corpse, a dead man walking. However, it turned out that he had just been the correct time in the public eye for his previous failures to be forgotten – whereas previously he had been too interesting and exciting to succeed in Finnish politics (yes, this is possible in Finnish politics), now he could reinvent himself as a more of an elder statesperson/technocratic type. Such a figure is genuinely very appealing to many, even if it is not for me.

In the end, many of the people who voted for Niinistö in previous elections probably voted for Stubb simply for continuity; both came from National Coalition, after all, even if the president is not supposed to belong to parties, and in many ways the election was simply an exercise in replacing a conservative center-right politician with a more liberal one. While Niinistö has been mythologized beyond recognition since his election, he used to be more controversial before his election, such as during his position as a finance minister in the late 90s and early 00s, as Finland continued a strict budget line despite economic crisis having passed.

Similarly, while Stubb still arouses strong emotions in many – too European and cosmopolitan for many conservatives, too neoliberal for many leftists, not enough of either for the most hardened neoliberals – the presidency by its very nature is intended to make the president an “unifying figure”, not offering space for controversial decisions in internal policy and allowing the president to represent the entire country in external ones. That will, certainly, benefit Stubb, too.