Incumbent President Tarja Halonen wins re-election

SAK and affiliated unions support campaign for second term

(Helsinki 30.1.2006 - Juhani Artto) In Finland, the incumbent President Tarja Halonen, 62, has been re-elected for another six-year term. She narrowly defeated her conservative challenger Sauli Niinistö. When elected in 2000 Halonen became Finland's first female president.

During these last few months of her campaign, Halonen defended the Nordic welfare state, as she has done throughout her long career as a politician.

In the early stages of campaigning, SAK, the largest union confederation in Finland, and several of its affiliated unions, decided to openly support Halonen's re-election.

&#;8221President Tarja Halonen is the only candidate who has consistently defended the principles, important for wage and salary earners: the generally binding character of collective agreements and the tri-partite labour market system", the SAK President Lauri Ihalainen argued shortly before the election day.

In the global trade union movement Halonen is well-known for having co-chaired, along with her Tanzanian colleague Benjamin Mkapa, the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation. Its final report, A Fair Globalisation: Creating Opportunities for All, published in February 2004, offers valuable tools and innovations in the struggle for a more just globalisation process.

Through the 1970s Halonen worked as a labour lawyer at the SAK. From1979, until 2000, she served as a Social Democrat Member of Parliament. Between 1987 and 2000 she held four ministerial posts, in all, covering Social and Health Affairs, Foreign Policy, Justice and Nordic co-operation.

Halonen is also well known for her active involvement in international solidarity causes, like championing the rights of the Chilean people during the military dictatorship, and for her readiness to defend minorities.

You can read the whole article in Trade Union News from Finland.