Sauli Niinisto

President of Finland

Sauli Väinämö Niinistö (born 24 August 1948) is a Finnish politician of the National Coalition Party. He is the current president-elect of Finland, and will assume office on March 1, 2012. A lawyer by training, he was Minister of Finance from 1996 to 2003 and the National Coalition Party candidate in the 2006 presidential election. He served as the Speaker of the Parliament of Finland from 2007 to 2011 and has been the Honorary President of the European People's Party (EPP) since 2002. He is also President of the Football Association of Finland.

Niinistö was the National Coalition Party candidate in the 2012 presidential election. With 37.0% of the vote, he won the first round of the election and faced off against Pekka Haavisto of the Green League in the decisive second round. He carried the second round with around 62.6% against Haavisto's 37.4%.

Career

Born in Salo, Niinistö ran his own law firm in Salo before entering national politics.

Niinistö served on the municipal council of Salo from 1977 to 1992 and was elected a Member of the Finnish Parliament (Eduskunta) from the district of Finland Proper in 1987. In 1994 he was chosen to lead the National Coalition Party as the party chairman and subsequently became Justice Minister in Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen's first cabinet in 1995.

Switching portfolios, Niinistö became Finance Minister in 1996, a place he held also in Lipponen's second cabinet from 1999–2003. In both cabinets, the right wing Niinistö was deputy to social democrat Lipponen, thus enabling the use of the term rainbow government in reference to Lipponen's two consecutive cabinets. As Finance Minister Niinistö was known for his strict fiscal policy as well as his hobby of roller skating.

Niinistö was urged by his party to stand for president in the elections of 2000, but he refused.

Niinistö announced his gradual retirement from politics in 2001, a course of action he has not completely followed to date. He was succeeded that year by Ville Itälä as party leader. Upon the end of his term as a cabinet minister in 2003, Niinistö went on to become vice-chairman of the Board of Directors at the European Investment Bank.

In March 2005, Niinistö announced his candidacy for the Finnish Presidency. He represented the National Coalition Party, challenging the incumbent President Tarja Halonen. He qualified for the second round runoff (as one of the top two candidates in the first round), held on 29 January 2006, but was defeated by Tarja Halonen.

In 2006 Niinistö announced that he was standing again for the Finnish parliamentary election. He said, however, that he had no plans to take any high-ranking political job like the prime ministership in the future. He received 60,498 personal votes in the 2007 elections, which is a record number of votes for one candidate in a Finnish parliamentary election. It was about 50 % more than the earlier record by the very popular Hertta Kuusinen, also from Turku district.

After the 2007 election Niinistö decided to take the respected position of the Speaker of the Parliament. Niinistö is also Honorary President of the European People's Party (EPP) after successfully negotiating the merger of the European Democrat Union (EDU) into the EPP in 2002.

Niinistö was elected as the President of the Football Association of Finland on 8 November 2009, replacing Pekka Hämäläinen.

 Personal

Niinistö's first wife Marja-Leena Niinistö died in a car accident in 1995. Niinistö married his second wife Jenni Haukio (born 1977) in January 2009.

While a cabinet minister, Niinistö, a widower, was romantically involved with MP Tanja Karpela, a former beauty queen and later Minister of Culture. Karpela's Centre Party was in opposition and Niinistö was considered the second-most influential man in government. Under close press scrutiny ever since, in 2003 Karpela and Niinistö announced their engagement, which was however called off in 2004.

Niinistö is the uncle of Ville Niinistö, a Green League MP from Turku, leader of the Green League and Minister of the Environment.

In Finland, Niinistö is also remembered as one of the survivors of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. He escaped the ensuing tsunami by climbing up a utility pole with his son Matias in Khao Lak.

Campaign funds

 Niinistö received 50,000 euros for his presidential election campaign in 2006 from Ahti Vilppula via the company Helsingin Mekaanikkotalo. Mekaanikkotalo is owned by Procomex in Luxembourg and further by Kilbrin Investments Limited in the Virgin Islands. In 2009 it was found out that funds were not included in the official finance announcement in 2006.

Total funds for the 2006 president campaign were ca 2,225,000 ˆ. Official funds announcement was in the end of March 2006. In September 2009 Niinistö gave additional data of extra funds from Nova Group (KMS) value of 30.500 ˆ. It was used to the payments to the Lehtiyhtymä newspapers owned by Eero Lehti, a member of parliament (National Coalition Party). Mr. Lehti owns also the gallup compay Taloustutkimus, that yle uses for the opinion polls before elections.

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