Updated 20 January 2000

Brief description of the election results

Tarja Halonen won the first round of the Presidential election with 1,224,431 votes, which is 40.0 per cent of all votes cast. Halonen, the candidate of the Social Democratic Party, received the largest proportion of votes cast in seven constituencies. She gained most votes in the constituencies of Helsinki (48.1%) and Pirkanmaa (45.2%). The support for Halonen was 5.6 percentage points higher than for Aho.

Esko Aho , the Centre Party candidate, was the other winner of the election. Aho received 1,051,159 votes, or 34.4 per cent of all votes cast and lost by 173,272 votes to the election winner. Aho gained the largest proportion of votes cast in eight constituencies. In the constituency of Oulu he got more than one half of all votes cast (50.2%) and he also did well in the constituencies of Vaasa (49.8%) and Lapland (48.6%).

The candidate of the National Coalition Party, Riitta Uosukainen received 392,305 votes, i.e. 12.8 per cent of all votes cast. Uosukainen got the third highest number of votes in the election, but her support was not sufficient for the largest proportion of votes in any constituency. She was most successful in the constituency of Kymi, where she got 20.2 per cent of all votes cast.

Elisabeth Rehn, the candidate of the Swedish People's Party, got 241,877 votes, which is 7.9 per cent of all votes cast. Rehn succeeded best in the constituency of Vaasa (15.9%) and in Åland (56.8%). The number of votes cast for Rehn was now 14.1 percentage points lower than in the first round of the Presidential election 1994.

Heidi Hautala received 100,740 votes, i.e. 3.3 per cent of all votes cast. Hautala was the candidate of the Green League in the Presidential election. She was most successful in the constituency of Helsinki, where she got 6.4 per cent of the vote.

Ilkka Hakalehto, the candidate of True Finns, got 31,405 votes, which is one per cent of all votes cast. The highest proportion of votes for Hakalehto were cast in the constituencies of Satakunta and Pirkanmaa, where he got 1.4 per cent of all votes cast.

Risto Kuisma collected a total of 16,943 votes, or 0.6 per cent of the votes cast. Kuisma was the candidate of the Reform Group in the election. Kuisma attained the best result in Uusimaa and Pirkanmaa (0.7%).