2012 Finnish presidential election

2012 Finnish presidential election
← 2006 22 January 2012 (first round)
5 February 2012 (second round)		 2018 →
Turnout69.74% (first round)
65.98% (second round)
 
Candidate Sauli Niinistö Pekka Haavisto
Party National Coalition Green
Popular vote 1,802,328 1,077,425
Percentage 62.59% 37.41%
Niinistö:      50–55%      55–60%      60–65%      65–70%      70–75%      75–80%      80–85%      85–90%
Haavisto:      50–55%      55–60%      60–65%
President before election

Tarja Halonen
SDP

Elected President

Sauli Niinistö
National Coalition

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Presidential elections were held in Finland in January and February 2012. The first round took place on 22 January 2012 with advance voting between 11 and 17 January. Since no candidate received a majority of the vote, a second round was held on 5 February, with advance voting between 25 and 31 January. Sauli Niinistö was elected the President of Finland for a term from 1 March 2012 until 1 March 2018.[1][2]

All eight political parties represented in Parliament nominated a candidate during the latter half of 2011. Incumbent President Tarja Halonen was ineligible for re-election, having served the maximum two terms.[3]

In the first round, no candidate received a majority of votes.[4] Thus, a runoff election was held between Sauli Niinistö of the National Coalition Party, with 37% of the first-round vote, and Pekka Haavisto of the Green League, who received 18.8% of the first-round vote.[4][5] Niinistö led the polls prior to the elections, while Haavisto was neck-and-neck with Paavo Väyrynen of the Centre Party competing for second place, ultimately defeating Väyrynen by a margin of 1.3 percentage points (about 37,000 votes). Sauli Niinistö won the second round with 62.6% of the votes (1.8 million votes), while Pekka Haavisto received 37.4% of the votes (1.1 million votes).[2]

The elections marked an end to an era of Social Democratic presidents. The Social Democrats had held the office for a continuous period of 30 years. It was also the first time that a Green League candidate was on the runoff ballot.[6]

  1. ^ "Valituksi tuleminen – Vaalit". Vaalit.fi. Archived from the original on 28 January 2012. Retrieved 7 February 2012.
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference round2-results was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ "Article 5, clause 54 of the Finnish constitution". Finlex.fi. Retrieved 7 February 2012.
  4. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference round1-results was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ "Presidential elections: Niinistö, Haavisto headed for second round". yle.fi. 22 January 2012. Retrieved 22 January 2012.
  6. ^ "Presidentinvaalissa edessä historiallinen valinta". Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish). Sanoma News. 23 January 2012.