“During the 2018 elections, I don't remember a single interview about me where it was brought up as a negative thing,” Haavisto tells Yle.
Mightily in the Sunday election broadcast, a reporter Matti Rönkä asked the expert guests in the studio how Pekka Haaviston “gender orientation” affects the voting choice in the second round. The opening has resulted in a lot of discussion, in which people have wondered, among other things, whether a candidate's sexual orientation is really a relevant issue in Finland even today.
In the article published on Friday, Yle asked the presidential candidate From Pekka Haavisto (green) himself, what does he think about the speculations that homosexuality would possibly have an effect on success in the elections.
“Yle's approach to these questions sounds old-fashioned. Perhaps the last time in the 2012 elections, a journalist raised the issue,” Haavisto commented on the matter to Yle.
“During the 2018 elections, I don't remember a single interview with me where it was brought up as a negative thing,” he says.
In addition Haavisto was asked, among other things, about the requirements for a gay couple to take care of, for example, state visits. State visits are part of the president's duties.
“We travel there as a couple, wherever we are invited. I have worked in the most strict Islamic countries in the world. A typical reaction there is that when you are about to say goodbye, you say welcome home with a small smile. It is quite well known that it is a male couple,” says Haavisto.
Haavisto adds that in the world sexual orientation “doesn't raise such big questions anymore”. The president of Latvia and the prime ministers of France and Luxembourg belong to the sexual minority, he states.
Over also asked Haavisto's spouse by Antonio Flores opinion. According to Flores, the gender of the president's spouse no longer matters today.
“When we were in the presidential elections for the first time in 2012, the situation was a little different. People became interested in who we are and who the president is married to,” he says.
On Friday Svenska Yle reported on the University of Helsinki's citizen barometer, which revealed that for a third of people, Haavisto's spouse is the reason not to vote for Haavisto.
According to Svenska Yle, the right-wing conservatives considered the matter clearly more important, but some left-wing liberals also considered Haavisto's partner a reason not to vote for him.
About 1,300 people responded to the survey, and its results have been weighted to represent the Finnish people at a general level.
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