Center | The career did not end at the bottom: Antti Kaikkonen’s turn finally came

The center elected to the leadership Antti Kaikkonen50, was beforehand the overwhelming favorite among the current leading politicians in the center.

Five years ago, the situation was different. Kaikkonen left in 2019 Juha Sipilä in the subsequent presidential race, but lost To Katri Kulmuni. Back then, the younger and more inexperienced female candidate was the one who appealed to centrists.

Now it’s the turn of a father of young children who lives in Uusimaa and knows the inner city inside and out. This raises hopes among many centrists: perhaps the party’s image in Southern Finland, which is difficult for it, would improve with Kaikkonen.

Kaikkonen already five years ago impressed many representatives of the party assembly with his “backpack speech”. He put emotion into the game and showed a new side of himself. Speakers who make listeners reach for a tissue in their pocket have always been appreciated in the center.

Kaikkonen got up to the rostrum with a backpack and started to tell about everything he has achieved in his life to fill it. During the speech, little Antti was handing out election leaflets with his father, and slightly older Antti was sitting at the campfire site of Alkio school, having already fully embraced centrist ideas.

Thence the speech progressed to the bottom of his career, i.e. the five-month suspended sentence received in 2013 for abuse of a position of trust. Kaikkonen was the chairman of the board of the Youth Foundation, which had distributed election funding to him.

In his speech, Kaikkonen told how it felt to see stories about “the fall of the city center’s gold standard” on the slopes.

“I’m going home. Mom is calling. I’m good for mom. It helps.”

Even the most hardened listener was already flabbergasted at that point, but the rhetorically skilled speech did not help. Kaikkonen was still waiting for his turn, which came surprisingly quickly. Annika Saarikko challenged the sitting chairman Kulmuni in 2020, and now Saarikko is giving way as well.

Antti Kaikkonen is a 50-year-old sixth-term member of parliament from Uusimaa, born in the center of the party. He has seen the party from many different angles: as chairman of the youth organization, Paavo Väyrynen as an assistant, chairman of the parliamentary group.

In the end, the election money scandal did not derail Kaikonen’s career in a downward direction and he has not hidden the bumps he received, but on the contrary turned them into a victory – during the election money investigation, his election slogan was “Better than his reputation”.

The number of votes has only increased in the last elections.

In 2015, the center appointed Kaikkonen as chairman of the foreign affairs committee, from which he later changed Matti Vanhanen tasks with and rose to the leadership of the center’s parliamentary group.

It was the reign of chairman Juha Sipilä, which later became a source of criticism: the parliamentary group led by Kaikkönen tamed and shunned the raucous debate characteristic of the center.

Secretary General of the Center’s Parliamentary Group Seija Turtiainen said in his retirement interview for HS that the parliamentary group was like a family with an authoritarian father. The role of the group chairman was to be a mother who scolded the children to be quiet when the father had a long day and was tired.

Kaikkonen was first as minister for the first time Antti Rinne (sd) and then Sanna Marini (sd) in the board. He received the portfolio of the Minister of Defense during the historic period when war broke out in Europe and Finland became a member of NATO. Kaikkonen’s non-gestural style seemed to enjoy appreciation within the ministry as well.

Kaikkonen considered going to this chairman’s race for a long time because of the family situation. She has sons born in 2020 and 2022 – as a minister, she made history by being the first male minister in Finland to take family leave.

“Even though I’m ready to commit to the presidency, I can’t go every weekend or every weekday evening or even every second. If one is needed, someone other than us must be chosen,” he said when announcing his departure from the presidential race.

No challengers appeared from Kuhmo Tuomas Kettus except for. The rest of the guard in the center is now making room for Kaikkonen.

The situation in the center has not improved at all since Kaikkonen’s previous bid for chairmanship, on the contrary, it has become more difficult. With his appeal, the center will immediately go to the municipal and regional elections next year, where the party’s blood will really be weighed.

There self-deprecating humor is also needed, which Kaikkonen has become known for on social media. Here is a sample of the message service X:

“I took the children to kindergarten, I was wearing a tie. Salla, 4 years old, met me.

Salla: Why are you wearing such a suit, are you going to the coronation?

Me: Of course not, I have a job where I have to dress like this.

Salla: Well, I don’t believe that!

Me: Well, no one else believes that either.”