Candidate Olli Rehnin the voter meeting in Helsinki's Vuosaari started on Saturday morning with two low-intensity crises.
The first concerns space and the rules of the game for democracy.
In the freezing cold, voters coming to the Vuotalo cultural center come across a note taped to the door: the event has been moved to the sports hall next door, because Vuotalo is an early voting location.
You may not campaign too close to polling stations. The team has decided at the last minute that they don't want to risk breaking the law now. After all, the president is also a value leader.
Early voting began on Wednesday and will continue until Tuesday. The actual election day is a week from now, Sunday, January 28.
Utissomaliken's Saturday published survey according to Rehn has increased his support slightly and is now at eleven percent together Jussi Halla-ahon with. In the survey Pekka Haavisto is in the top with 22 percent and Alexander Stubb second with 21 percent.
However, the Gallup polls do not vote, as the politicians say.
HS observed the election atmosphere in Helsinki for a day on Saturday. It turned out that the time for waddling is not over. It was not difficult to find citizens who have not yet chosen their candidate.
Rehn's event had to be postponed at the last minute.
Vuosaari people swim at the sports hall, the parking lot is full. The cafe's meeting room turns out to be too small and quickly fills up with a mostly retired audience. One woman turns at the door, saying that her voice was lost.
The second crisis of Rehn's campaign morning is related to the drink that is the surest way to get a Finnish voter to show up.
“There are no more cardboard coffee mugs,” comes a whisper from the crack in the door.
In the music industry working Hilkka Piipponen follows the noise with a yellow Viikki cap on his head. He is going skiing, but before that he wanted to take a selfie with Rehn to send to his relatives in Ilomants.
Piipponen went to vote for Rehn on Friday, but even his choice remained open for a long time.
“In my father's land, the center has always been voted for,” Piipponen says and laughs. Rehn is the candidate of the voters' association and the centre.
“But I really looked at her [maanantaisen] his election exam and it solved. There were no quick slogans and emotions did not boil over.”
Hilkka Piipponen wanted a picture with Olli Rehn.
Piipponen had time to visit Yle on site during the campaigns Sari Essayahin exam, impressed Jutta Urpilainen's story on reassuring security analysis and also read Alexander Stubb's book, which he liked.
“It made me remember that you can eat protein bars.”
The follow-up question to this observation remains unasked when Rehn steps into the scene in a black down jacket from a Finnish brand. Piipponen gets his selfie.
Sports hall in the meeting room, Rehn opens the game with football stories and taking credit for the Vuosaari subway. From there, he proceeds to a joke referring to his election number, which is heard twice at the event: “The third line is advanced, but not back, but forward.”
The public's interest is maintained quite well. However, in the case of the “European Stability Mechanism”, the back row begins to talk about the evening's expenses.
Finally, the audience gets to ask questions. It is not easy to say which themes will decide the votes of undecided voters, when the positions of the candidates in relation to Russia and NATO are so close to each other. Audience questions are one reference to that.
The first question concerns the acceleration of the European arms industry. Rehn states that it is important and says that he expects more from Germany.
“Ukraine is not winning and Russia is not losing with the current resources”.
Olli Rehn speaking to the voters on Saturday at the Vuosaari Sports Hall.
Another audience question gives no mercy.
“Is the vote wasted if I vote for you?” asks the pensioner Paavo Mäkinen.
Rehn predictably answers: of course not. There is a “positive vibe” in the air, he promises. Already before, Rehn has said that now we are going “all the way to the top” and that the intention is to “hook through the people”.
The third and fourth questions concern the strike winter and the three biggest crises in Rehn's life. The person asking about strike winter considers the strikes in February to be “contempt for democracy”. Rehn's answer is of a more moderate variety. In his opinion, the national conciliator's hands should not be tied too much to wages in export industries.
As the three biggest crises in his own life, Rehn mentions the death of his sister in a car accident, the Greek euro crisis and the year when he supported his friend Alpo Rusia against baseless accusations of espionage.
The occasion after finishing retired Mäkinen and life crises Inquired Tuula Pyykönen reveal themselves as voters who are still considering their choice.
“I have two candidates, between whom I am still weighing,” says Pyykönen.
In Pyykönen's opinion, what makes this year's selection difficult is that there are many good candidates.
“Actually, I wouldn't be terribly worried about which of these will become president, if we talk about… well, I won't go into individual people now. But it's a good situation.”
While Pyykönen tells his feelings, Rehn takes a moment to sit in the cafeteria of the swimming hall for an interview with Radio Sandels from Iisalme. From there, he continues by subway to the city center.
For the evening, meeting passers-by at the eastern metro stations and playing a pub quiz are planned, Rkp MEP by Nils Thorvalds with Il Treno restaurant in Mellunmäki.
At the subway station, many people walk past the campaign team without recognizing Rehn, but at Siilitie in the subway, one man is staring intently. In his hand he has Li Andersson's campaign brochure.
At the subway station and in the subway, not all passengers seemed to recognize candidate Olli Rehn, or they just politely knew how not to stare.
tracks HS's election observation day is also rushing forward.
On Saturday, Jussi Halla-aho, the candidate of the Basic Finns, is also campaigning in Helsinki. The party's local branch has reserved a hall at the Kinapori senior center near the Sörnäinen metro station.
You can also get coffee here. The large hall is not full, but there are dozens of listeners.
Only at the door Katrina-the voter who introduces himself by his first name says that he went to vote on Friday and that he changed his mind about the candidate just before the voting booth. It is not clear if his vote went to Halla-aho.
“He's not bad, even though he has strong opinions,” he says.
Jussi Halla-aho had a snack before his speech to the audience at the Kinapori senior center.
In the hall, the vice-chairman of the Helsinki district of Basic Finns Johannes Nieminen receive visitors. He agrees with Rehn's campaign team on at least one thing: the game has not been played yet.
“The direction is right and we're going to the second round,” says Nieminen.
Halla-aho's support has been below the party's parliamentary election support in polls. Nieminen sees it as a good resource for growth.
“The last week will show what will happen.”
There will be camera equipment because the event will be shown live online.
In the front row, an ol
der man says to the woman sitting next to him that “there is not a single Somali here”. Shortly after Halla-aho enters the stage, the same man says with a laugh that “there it is, our leader, our führer”.
A little earlier, HS has been approached by another man who would like to talk about the UN because, according to him, it is a “nest of freemasons”.
There is also a woman in the front row who says that she has supported the Finnish rural party SMP and the basic Finns born on its foundation for 57 years – ever since SMP's Lad and Pekka Vennamo train him from Helsinki to an apartment in a situation where he had to spend the night with his children in the basements of housing associations in Töölö.
Jussi Halla-aho gave his campaign speech in the Kinapori senior center hall.
In Kinapori's senior center, Halla-aho had dozens of listeners.
Halla-ahon the speech and the question session led by Nieminen deal with many current themes. Russia's Halla-aho says that it has turned into an “open rogue state”, but he also wants to emphasize the threat that too much economic dependence on China creates for Europe.
“There are hardly many objects in this hall that were not at least partially made in China,” Halla-aho says, and a surprised sigh can be heard from the front row.
Halla-aho talks extensively about immigration. According to him, it is now and in the coming decades “the most powerfully changing factor in Finnish society in terms of its effects and proportions”.
There is time to take two questions from the audience. Unfortunately for the organizers, the first of them is presented by a conspiracy theorist who also approached Helsingin Sanomi. Presenter Nieminen reports the more meaningful EU criticism part of the question to the microphone and leaves the Masonic stuff unrepeated.
Halla-aho answers that the EU has its advantages: it can offer tools for, for example, China policy and external border management.
“Unfortunately, however, the EU does not focus on being big in big things and small in small things, but rather big in small things.”
Another audience question is about the United Nations, but without the conspiracy theories. The questioner inquires about Halla-aho's view of Finland's role in the UN.
In Halla-aho's opinion, Finland should not apply for the position of a rotating member of the UN Security Council, because the number of applications can encourage bad choices.
“There then easily becomes a temptation to start anointing developing countries with money.”
Justus Krogell, 16, wanted a picture with Jussi Halla-aho.
The occasion after finishing, a 16-year-old worker is queuing for a group photo with Halla-aho among the older crowd Justus Krogell.
“He has some interesting things to say,” Krogell commented on what he saw.
Krogell has followed the election exams. To him, many candidates seem to be well informed.
His circle of friends also includes people of voting age. Krogell mentions “safety and justice” as themes of interest to young people.
“That if someone does something, he will also be punished.”
In Krogell's circle of friends, the most talk has been about Halla-aho and Stubb. According to Krogell, they are most often encountered on social media.
While talking with Krogell, the candidate himself has already disappeared from the hall. A transfer to Vaasa awaits him, where campaigning will continue on Sunday.
However, the candidate can still be found outside the hall wearing a beanie with the words “some border”. What are his plans for the final letter?
If Rehn started in Vuosaari with football stories, Halla-aho resorts to the most played game in the world to end the interview.
“I like German football more than Brazilian football. I don't believe in last-minute gimmicks or gimmicks, but long-term and consistent work.”
At the weekend, the campaigns of other candidates were also prominently displayed in Helsinki:
Maija-Liisa Aakko brought more coffee to Alexander Stubb's campaign booth at Narinkkatori in Helsinki on Saturday afternoon.
Harry “Hjallis” Harkimo's campaign was also visible on Saturday at Narinkkator.
Candidate Jutta Urpilainen is campaigning on the corner of Lasipalati in the center of Helsinki on Friday.
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