Finns vote on Sunday to elect new President

The second round ballot of the presidential election will be held across the country today (Sunday) to elect the new President for the next six years.

Former Prime Minister Alexander Stubb and former Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto are contesting in the poll as they became the top two among the nine candidates in the first round of the election held on January 28.

A total of 4546041 voters including 2355921 women and 2190120 men will elect the president out of nine candidates through exercising their rights of franchise from 9.00am to 8.00pm.

A total of 955 general polling stations were set up across the country for the election.

A total of 19,56,529 people already cast votes in advance in Finland in the second round of the election, which is 45.7 percent of the total voters living in the country.

In addition, 62,294 people cast votes in advance at Finland’s missions abroad.

The advance voting in the election started on January 31 in home and abroad and in Finland it ended on February 6 while the voting was ended abroad on February 3.

As per the results in the first round, Kansallinen Kokoomus (National Coalition Party) candidate Stubb narrowly led in the first round with 8,82,113 (27.2%) votes while his nearest contestant Haavisto of Vihreä Liitto (Green Party) secured 8,36,357 (25.8%) votes.

Perussuomalaiset (Finns Party) leader and Speaker of the Parliament Jussi Halla-aho secured the third place in the election with 6,15,487 (19%) votes followed by former lawmaker and Bank of Finland Governor Olli Rehn of Suomen Keskusta (Centre Party of Finland) with 4,96,518 (15.3%) votes, Vasemmistoliitto (Left Alliance) Chairperson Li Andersson with 1,58,328 (4.9%) votes, former Chairperson of Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue (Social Democratic Party of Finland -SDP) Jutta Urpilainen with 1,40,802 (4.3%) votes, SuomenKristillisdemokraatit (Christian Democrats of Finland-CD) Chairperson Sari Essayah with 47,820 (1.5%) votes, Independent candidate Mika Aaltola with 47,426 (1.5%) votes and Liike Nyt (Movement Now) lawmaker Harry Harkimo with 17,013 (0.5%) votes.