Finland is voting for its new president on Sunday 5th of February. The first round of elections was two weeks ago, and since none of the candidates gained over 50% of the votes, the two most voted go into second round. We already know that these elections have changed the political status quo in Finland. For the past 30 years, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) has won the elections and held the highest possible office in Finland. Now there are candidates  from National Coalition Party and Green Party at the finishing line, and we know for sure that the SDP-era is going to end.

To analyze the presidential elections (and the behavior of the supporters), we have to look a bit back in history. No further however than last April – the parliamentary elections. The big winner of the elections were True Finns, who managed to gain 19,1% of all votes, which was 15 place improvement to the result they had in previous parliamentary elections in 2007. What was so remarkable in this? True Finns is a party that is populist, against immigration, European Union and pretty much everything that the other “older” parties stand for. They are especially argumentative towards leftish parties and the Greens, which lost a massive amount of their support last spring. After the True Finns victory everyone, especially the leftish intellectuals, were afraid that Finland is going to lose its reputation as a peace-building, neutral and civilized northern state.

Before the campaigns for the presidential elections really started, the biggest question was whether there was going to be a second round or would the candidate of National Coalition Party, Mr. Sauli Niinistö take it all already on the first round. To be honest no one actually believed that Mr. Pekka Haavisto, the candidate of the Green Party, had a chance to go to second round. The Greens have a support of something around 5% in Finland, and Mr. Haavisto was considered to be an outsider in Finnish domestic politics since he has been working for UN missions for the past few years. He is also publicly gay and living in a registered relationship with a man. For some amount of Finns the idea of a gay president representing us around the world is still something not to be even discussed about.

As it turned out, 18% of Finns were ready for Green president and Mr. Haavisto went to second round together with the favorite Mr. Niinistö (37% of the vote). After the first round, the analytics and supporters of Mr. Haavisto were crying out in media and all over the country that this was the anti-True Finns movement, aimed to support the open and pro-European Finland. Which actually is true – I said to my husband after the results of the first round that this was the proof that there are still open, international and caring people living in the north.

After the first round, the supporters prepared themselves for a tough battle. During the campaigns there have been quite big differences in support; 63% for Niinistö, 37% for Haavisto. It is almost obvious that Mr. Niinistö is going to be the next president of Finland. But that is not what is interesting. What is interesting is how the whole Finnish nation have been divided into two camps; those who are intolerant, capitalist and conservative bastards (supporters of Mr. Niinistö) and those who are so-called trendy wannabes, whose understanding of the world is somewhat lacking realism (supporters of Mr. Haavisto).

Both sides have been accusing the other for voting for wrong reasons. Supporters of Niinistö believe that the only reason to vote for Haavisto is that he is gay. Since he is also urban Green party candidate, that (according to Niinistö camp) is also trendy. Supporters of Haavisto accuse that many voters of Niinistö would vote for Haavisto, but they do not do so since he is gay and thus are intolerant, conservative people who do not respect human rights.

I think it is incredible insulting for everyone, and especially to those smart and excellent candidates, to even go on to this kind of discourse. For sure, there are some people who think that president of Finland just cannot be gay. For sure, there are some people who vote for Haavisto so they can vote for gay rights at the same time. But most of Finnish people are smart, educated and decent people. The ones who vote for Niinistö, stand by his values and share the same ideas about the future of the country. Those who vote for Haavisto, share the same things with him.

Whatever the result on Sunday is going to be, one thing is for sure. There is going to be a group of Finns who think that the result was not fair. The Haavisto camp is going to believe that the reason he lost is the gay issue. In the quite unlikely case that Mr. Haavisto wins, National Coalition Party and all supporters of Niinistö are going to think for the rest of their lives that people voted for Haavisto since it was trendy. Whatever the result, it is going to be unfair to some.