Sauli Niinisto elected as new president of Finland
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E-mail Xinhua, February 6, 2012
Finland's conservative front-runner Sauli Niinisto from the National Coalition Party was elected on Sunday as the country's new president in the second round of voting in the Finnish presidential election.
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Finnish conservative presidential candidate Sauli Niinistoe (R) of the National Coalition party waves on February 5, 2012 during an election night rally in Helsinki. [Xinhua/AFP] |
Niinisto, 63, won 62.6 percent of the votes, while his competitor Green League candidate Pekka Haavisto bagged 37.4 percent. Niinisto had failed to secure more than 50 percent of the votes in the first round of voting held on Jan. 22.
A veteran politician, Niinisto had served as a member of the Finnish Parliament in 1987. From 1994 to 2001, he was the chairman of the National Coalition Party of Finland. He served as Minister of Justice in the following two years, and from 1996 to 2003, he was the Minister of Finance. From 2007 to 2011, he also served as the Speaker of the Finnish Parliament.
Niinisto will be sworn in on March 1, replacing Tarja Halonen, the country's first female president, who has served for two six-year terms. His victory ended the Finnish Social Democratic Party's three-decade-long holding of the country's presidency.
Under the Finnish Constitution, the president is elected directly by citizens for a term of six years. No president may serve for more than two consecutive terms.
Powers of the Finnish president have diminished rapidly over the past 20 years, whilst powers of the cabinet and parliament were significantly strengthened.
The president no longer has the right to individually set foreign policies, which are to be jointly formulated by the president and the cabinet. However, the president still plays an important role in the fields of foreign and security policy making in Finland.
In terms of internal affairs, the Finnish president's influence is also quite limited. The president can only appoint the prime minister according to the parliament's proposal.
Niinisto's victory in Finland's presidential election is not expected to lead to dramatic changes to the course of the country's foreign policies.
Niinisto has previously emphasized that Finland would open to the whole world, and continue to further relations with all countries in the global community.
Above all, the country would maintain close relations with neighboring Russia, and further strengthen cooperation with other Nordic countries. In the mean time, it will also seek to continue to keep good relations with the United States, and enhance friendly ties with China.
Niinisto also maintained that Finland should play a constructive role in Europe, amid an escalating sovereign debt crisis that has plagued the 17-member eurozone for more than two years, and threatened to spark a financial maelstrom across the world.
He claimed that the eurozone should return to the no-aid principle, which means member states should not provide any aid to their troubled peers who had fallen into a financial crisis.
Commenting on Finland's potential NATO membership, Niinisto said if the country were to join the intergovernmental military alliance in the future, the issue should be resolved by a way of referendum.
On internal policies, Niinisto has promised to focus on youth employment, and to make greater efforts to improve the living conditions of young Finns.
He has also called on Finns to work hard and promote innovation in order to boost the country's economic recovery and growth.
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