The former prime minister, triathlete and europhile Alexander Stubb, who advocates deep NATO cooperationmade a triumphant return to politics after a seven-year hiatus by winning the Finnish presidency by 51% of the vote in Sunday’s election.
Some 4.3 million voters chose between Stubb and former Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, a Green Party MP who is running as an independent. “Well, Alexander. Congratulations to the 13th President of Finland” Haavisto told Stubb live on television.
Stubb, who called the victory “the greatest honor of my life”, will take office on March 1, with the changing geopolitical landscape in Europe the main challenge for the new head of state.
Although he has limited powers compared to the prime minister, Stubb will guide the country’s foreign policy together with the government and will act as supreme commander of the armed forces from Finland.
“It is absolutely incredible that a country the size of Finland can have such a fair and honest election in this context of security policy,” Stubb declared in a victory speech to his voters.
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The former Conservative National Party leader’s candidacy for office was motivated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“I can say with my hand on my heart that this consideration was not a reality before the war began,” he said when announcing his candidacy in August.. “When the country calls, you go.”
“I believe that one of the most important tasks for the next presidential term is work for the preservation of the international system based on rules,” Stubb said.
Stubb said he favors a deep NATO cooperation, such as allowing the transport of nuclear weapons through Finnish soil and stationing some NATO troops permanently in Finland. However, he does not support the storage of nuclear weapons in Finland.
“Sometimes a nuclear weapon is a guarantee of peace,” Stubb said in a presidential debate.
Alexander Stubb will inherit power amid high tension between Finland and Russia
Moscow and Helsinki maintained good relations in the post-Cold War period. Outgoing president Sauli Niinisto, who is stepping down after two terms, was nicknamed “Putin Whisperer” because of his previous close ties to the Russian leader.
But relations between the two countries deteriorated following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which led Finland to abandon decades of military non-alignment and join NATO in April 2023.
Russia, with whom Finland shares a 1,340-kilometer border, quickly warned of “countermeasures.”
In August 2023, Finland saw an influx of migrants entering through its eastern border without visas. The government claimed Moscow was pressuring migrants to destabilize it and closed its border in November in response.
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“I think he will be able to navigate both multilateral cooperation and bilateral relations, which is what is needed, and will probably also understand the big picture of foreign and security policy,” said Hanna Ojanen, director of political research at the University from Tampere.
Stubb and Haavisto shared similar views on the country’s stance toward Russia, calling for additional sanctions against Moscow and support for Ukraine.
“Very strong support for Ukraine will certainly continue. Issues in which Russia is involved in one way or another will begin to appear on the agenda, which will have to be resolved,” Ojanen said.
Stubb had long supported a NATO bid, saying Finland should “go to the core” of the organization and “produce, not consume, security.”
In an interview with Reuters, Stubb said that for now there would be no Russian pillar in Finland’s foreign policy: “Politically, there will be no relations with the president of Russia nor with Russian political leaders until they stop the war in Ukraine,” he said.
Who is Alexander Stubb, the former prime minister who will be the next President of Finland
Stubb, who lived in the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Luxembourg and Italy, and says he can hold conversations in “excellent” Finnish, Swedish, English and French and “good” German, was thrust into the heart of Finnish politics by chance
In 2008, the then MEP replaced his party colleague Ilkka Kanerva as foreign minister after the latter was forced to resign following a series of text messages he sent to an erotic dancer.
Leaving Brussels behind, Stubb initially returned to his childhood home in Helsinki and said it was probably the only one Minister of Foreign Affairs of the world he still lived with his father.
At the age of forty, Stubb took up triathlon and his enthusiasm for the sport also left its mark at the Foreign Office, where sweets and coffee were replaced by fruit and healthy drinks.
Stubb then served as prime minister from 2014 to 2015. During his tenure, he was criticized by the press for wearing shorts to a press conference on the situation in Ukraine in 2014 and for acting as a human target at a theme park.
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According to Stubb himself, one of his biggest mistakes as prime minister was granting permission for the construction of a nuclear power plant together with the Russian state company Rosatom.
His career was hampered after his party came second in the 2015 elections and he became finance minister.
He then lost the leadership of his party to now-Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, and in 2017 he left the Finnish parliament to become vice-president of the European Investment Bank.
After losing the race for the presidency of the EU Commission in 2018, Stubb left politics for academia and spent the last three years as director of the School of Transnational Governance at the European University Institute and professor in Florence, Italy.
Stubbs, Father of two children, he married Suzanne Innes-Stubb in 1998., currently global compliance director at elevator engineering company Kone. A dual Finnish-British national, she will be Finland’s first foreign-born first lady.
Stubb became a sought-after commentator in foreign media after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, highlighting how in 2008 he had predicted that the war between Russia and Georgia would mark a turning point in foreign policy.
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2024-02-11 22:12:00