Updated 20 January 2000

Votes cast for candidates and voting turnout in the first round in 2000

Tarja Halonen and Esko Aho made it to the second round

In the first round of the Presidential election, the two candidates who received the highest number of votes were Tarja Halonen and Esko Aho. Tarja Halonen, the candidate of the Social Democratic Party received 1,224,431 votes and thus won the first round with 40.0 per cent of all votes cast. Esko Aho, the candidate of the Centre Party of Finland came second with 34.4 per cent of the votes cast. He received 1,051,159 votes. The difference between these two candidates with most votes was 5.6 percentage points.

Riitta Uosukainen came third with 392,305 votes, or 12.9 per cent of all votes cast. She fell clearly behind the two candidates with most votes. The fourth largest number of votes, 241,877, was cast for Elisabeth Rehn, i.e. 7.9 per cent of all votes cast. The next was Heidi Hautala who received 100,740 votes, or 4.5 per cent of all votes cast. The numbers of votes cast for Risto Kuisma and Ilkka Hakalehto remained fairly low, Kuisma received 16,943 votes, i.e. 0.6 per cent of the votes cast and Hakalehto 31,405, or 1.0 per cent of all votes cast.

The numbers of votes cast for Esko Aho and Tarja Halonen were considerably higher in the first round of the election than the numbers of votes cast for the parties they represent in the last Parliamentary elections. The number of votes cast for Aho was 12.0 percentage points higher than that of votes cast for the Centre Party in the previous Parliamentary elections and the number of votes cast for Halonen was 17.2 percentage points higher than that of votes cast the Social Democratic Party in the Parliamentary elections 1999.

Voting turnout weaker than in the previous Presidential election

The voting turnout of Finnish citizens resident in Finland was 76.9, which was 5.3 percentage points lower than in the previous 1994 Presidential election. Voting turnout was higher in the two previous direct Presidential elections (in 1988 and 1994) than now. It was, however, higher than in the Parliamentary elections (68.3%) and the European Parliament elections (31.4%) held in 1999.

Voting turnout was now highest in the constituency of Vaasa, at 79.1 per cent and in the constituency of Uusimaa, at 79.0 per cent. Only in Åland voting turnout was just 59.1. The total number of persons entitled to vote, including eligible voters resident abroad, was 4,167,200. Of all persons entitled to vote, 3,962,283 were resident in Finland and 204,917 were living abroad.

In all Statistics Finland's statistical tables by municipality and constituency the voting turnout is calculated from votes cast by Finnish citizens resident in Finland.