Finnish presidential election, 2012
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Tarja Halonen
Social Democratic
Sauli Niinistö
National Coalition
The presidential election was held in Finland in January and February. The first round took place on 22 January 2012 with advance voting on 11–17 January, and the second round occurred on 5 February with advance voting on 25–31 January. The elected candidate's term began on 1 March 2012 and will last until 2018. The incumbent Tarja Halonen was ineligible for re-election, having served the maximum two terms.
All the eight political parties represented in the Parliament nominated a candidate during the latter half of 2011. No candidate received a majority of votes in the first round; with 37.0 percent of the vote, Sauli Niinistö of the National Coalition Party won the first round and faced off against Pekka Haavisto of the Green League, who got 18.8% of the vote, in a two-round system. Niinistö led the polls prior to the election, while Haavisto was neck and neck with Paavo Väyrynen of the Centre Party competing for the second place, ultimately defeating Väyrynen by a margin of 1.3 percentage points (about 37,000 votes).
The election 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.
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).
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