Presidents

Today is the first election for the next Finnish President. Now for all of my American readers, you are thinking "First?". Yes, first. The way that Finland narrows down their presidential candidates is far less confusing than the ever baffling caucus system. Here is how it works. The eight political parties, yes eight, choose their candidates. Then today the Finnish people vote for their favorite. Now if one of the candidates gets more than half of the votes today, he/she is the next president of Finland. However, because this hardly ever happens, the candidates with the top two percentages of votes run against each other in a second election which is two weeks from now.

The Finnish Presidential Candidates

Now as you notice with every country, most of them are old men. Now this is true, but what makes it cool is that there is actually women, and one of the old men is gay. I think the level of acceptance in Finland is what puts it ahead of so many other countries. Now the favorite seems to be Sauli Niinistö, but Pekka Haavisto is also suprisingly popular, considering his sexual orientation would turn a whole party of Americans against him. I am waiting now with my host parents to find out who wins, as they shut down the polling stations in 10 minutes. I will post more about the second rounds later, but I am super excited to watch this.