FINLAND'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: SUDDENLY, IT'S A

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HELSINKI 000063

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL FI
SUBJECT: FINLAND'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: SUDDENLY, IT'S A
RACE

REF: A. HELSINKI 16


B. 05 HELSINKI 1296


1. (SBU) Summary: Incumbent Tarja Halonen made an
impressive showing in the first round of Finland's
presidential election, besting her nearest rival,
Conservative Sauli Niinisto, by more than 21
percentage points. However, Halonen was unable to
secure a first round victory and, for the first time
in the campaign, she and the SDP may have reason to be
concerned. The two-candidate race has quickly
tightened into a far closer contest than any pundit or
pre-election poll had predicted, as PM/Center Party
Candidate Matti Vanhanen - - who finished a
disappointing third with only 18 percent of the first
round vote - - announced he would support Niinisto.
This effort to rally "non-socialist support" may be
bearing fruit, as current surveys give Halonen 53
percent and Niinisto 47, and has caused consternation
among the SDP and its allies on the left. However a
fifth of voters remain undecided. Even though the
winner will not be determined until Jan. 29, pundits
have listed Vanhanen among the bigger "losers"
following the first round. Meanwhile, Niinisto and
the Conservatives have already been dubbed "winners,"
simply by dint of forcing a second round. And should
Niinisto pull off an upset -- which we, like most
Finnish analysts, still view as unlikely -- the once-
heavily favored Halonen and her SDP will clearly be
viewed as the biggest losers. End Summary.

Suddenly, It's a Race
--------------

2. (SBU) The wind chill in Helsinki dipped below -40
degrees in the week following the first round of
Finland's presidential election but, for the first
time during this winter campaign, incumbent Tarja
Halonen of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) may have
broken a sweat. Her showing on Jan. 15 was
impressive, to be sure: Halonen netted 46 percent of
the vote, easily outdistancing her nearest rival,
Conservative Party (CONS) candidate Sauli Niinisto,
who took 24 percent. Center Party (CEN) candidate and
current Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen won 18 percent,
followed by the Green Party's Heidi Hautala (3.4%);
the True Finn Party's Timo Soini (3.3%); and three
others who won less than 1.5% each. Halonen's
supporters within the SDP note that a 46 percent
first-round showing is among the highest in Finnish
history, and that even a six point lead going into
round two is quite high. One SDP strategist told us
that women and voters on the left still overwhelmingly
favor Halonen, and he suggested that both the
narrowing of her lead and the very fact of a second
round will energize her base -- some of whom may have
stayed at home during round one -- to get out and
vote. Others have suggested that the SDP
"enthusiasts" (see reftel) who eagerly pushed for a
first round win were never realistic, and that the
machinery remains in place to ensure success in the
second round.


3. (SBU) Still, the enthusiasts and even Halonen
herself found it difficult to hide their
disappointment at being forced to face a run-off
against Niinisto. Overall turnout was only 73
percent, the lowest since Finns began electing their
president directly. To compound Halonen's
disappointment, Finland-Gallup quickly offered further
reasons for apprehension. Its first poll following
the first round, released on January 17, showed 53
percent voting for Halonen in the second round and 47
percent for Niinisto. Before the first round, polls
asking voters whom they would support in a
hypothetical runoff between Niinisto and Halonen had
indicated that the President would win better than 60
percent of the vote in an one-on-one contest.
However, the recent narrowing appears to reflect that
Niinisto's significant surge in momentum before the
election has continued.


4. (SBU) According to one SDP analyst, the turnout
factor not only spelled the difference in preventing
Halonen's first round win, but also may have reflected
a bit of a failure in terms of the party's own efforts
to get out the vote. It also contributed to a
surprising surge by Niinisto in the final days, he
noted. Meanwhile, Halonen supporters from non-SDP
parties were less circumspect. The party chair of the
Left Alliance -- which supported Halonen from the
beginning and ran no candidate of its own -- placed
blame for the run-off squarely on the SDP, asserting
that it had run a lethargic campaign and failed to
attract the "cross-over" voters needed for a first
round victory. On the other hand, she said, her
party's voters had done their share to support
Halonen.


5. (SBU) Despite the concern and disappointment,
nearly all our SDP contacts still predicted that
Halonen would withstand the challenge and win.
Indeed, most hold that, barring a major gaffe by
Halonen, the President should win handily. However,
an increasing number also fear that Halonen's failure
to win a knock-out in the first round offers two
dangers. Aside from leaving the door open to an
albeit unlikely Niinisto upset, it also offers the
"bourgeois" parties (CEN and CONS) two weeks to test
their ability to cooperate -- something that could
result in stronger "anti-socialist" campaigns down the
road. Several of our contacts on the left have made
no attempt to hide their concern about the March 2007
parliamentary elections, in which many say the
emboldened bourgeois parties may be able to portray
the left as vulnerable.

Vanhanen Breaks with Halonen
--------------

6. (SBU) A significant reason for Niinisto's surge --
and for Halonen's concern -- was the prompt
announcement by CEN candidate Matti Vanhanen that he
would support Niinisto. The speed and verve of
Vanhanen's move -- a huge boon for Niinisto -- came as
a surprise to many. First, as Prime Minister,
Vanhanen has made his close cooperation and excellent
personal relationship with Halonen a point of pride,
even though many suggested it hurt him during the
presidential campaign. Second, the two "bourgeois"
parties (CEN and CONS) historically have had a
difficult time cooperating during elections, prompting
one of Vanhanen's own advisors to express surprise at
the PM's early and forceful endorsement of Niinisto.
She and others have suggested that Niinisto -- despite
winning Vanhanen's vote -- will still have to court
skeptical CEN voters actively if he hopes to defeat
Halonen, but that process may already be bearing
fruit: the same Jan. 18 Finland Gallup poll showed 80
percent of self-identified Vanhanen voters lining up
behind Niinisto.


7. (SBU) That said, Vanhanen clearly brings far fewer
voters with him than he would have hoped. In fact,
many pundits are portraying Vanhanen as the big loser
so far. The day after the election two of Vanhanen's
key advisors told poloff that the results were very
disappointing, although not a surprise. The PM's
internal polling had indicated for at least two weeks
that a more distant than hoped for third-place showing
was likely. Vanhanen did what he had to do during the
election and conducted his campaign with a courtesy
and respect for Halonen that most Finns admired. He
may have lost votes to Niinisto because of this, they
said, but he also showed that he could shelve his ego
for the good of the country and his party. The
advisors opined that the electorate would remember
Vanhanen's respectful campaign and his good
cooperation with Halonen and reward him and the Center
Party during next year's general election. However,
many others have suggested that Vanhanen and CEN both
now face a rough road, and that even the PM's position
as party chairman could be weakened unless he
orchestrates a reconsolidation, cabinet reshuffle, or
some other internal shake-up.

Niinisto: Already a Winner, Even if he Loses
--------------

8. (SBU) While some are calling Vanhanen an early
loser, many have already called Niinisto a de facto
winner regardless of whether or not he upsets Halonen
in Round Two. The fact that he not only made it to
the second round but also quickly narrowed the gap
between himself and the incumbent attest to both his
party's strong campaign and his own personal charisma.
Niinisto's campaign attracted praise from other
parties from the beginning, and the CONS youth
organization, in particular, devised innovative ways
to reach out to young, left-leaning Finns. Indeed,
his advisors sought to run a high-tech campaign
replete with messages considered controversial or even
aggressive by Finnish standards -- but which always
attracted significant attention. One poll noted that
Niinisto's campaign attracted a more "negative
response" from voters than any other, to which one of
his strategists responded, "Negative response is still
response."


9. (SBU) Comment: Niinisto's impressive efforts
notwithstanding, any analysis of the first round
should put one thing in perspective first: Tarja
Halonen won by an impressive margin and received more
votes than Niinisto and Vanhanen combined. She won
the majority of votes in several provinces that
traditionally are Center Party bastions, and barring
the unexpected, should win the second-round. That
said, her numbers-- just over 46% of the total-- were
in the low end of what even the SDP's more frugal
strategists expected. Meanwhile, Vanhanen's quick
endorsement of Niinisto may be the most intriguing
element of the entire campaign and may prove to have
the most long-term impact. Should Halonen win, the
PM's close and effective working relationship with her
-- which has paid dividends for his Government and for
the Center Party's reputation -- will most certainly
be strained. However, it may indeed foreshadow the
emergence down the road of enhanced "bourgeois"
cooperation -- something that CONS and CEN have always
dreamed of but never achieved. Their history of non-
cooperation is long and difficult, even though many in
the business-friendly wing of Vanhanen's Center Party
would prefer the Conservatives as a junior coalition
partner over the SDP. In any case, we still view a
Niinisto win as unlikely, despite CEN's support.
However, should he pull off the upset, both the SDP
and Halonen would clearly become the election's
biggest losers, both in round two and perhaps further
down the road as well.
HYATT