© Tuomas Forsell/ReutersFinns Party deputy chairman and presidential candidate Laura Huhtasaari in Helsinki
Of the eight contenders to be Finland's next president, none stand out quite like Laura Huhtasaari.
The candidate of the far-right Finns Party is an outlier in both style and substance. She won't win Sunday's presidential election but she's using her time in the spotlight to push her party's anti-immigrant, anti-establishment message.
She hates the European Union, cheered Brexit and supports Donald Trump - and believes Finland is more than ready for her brand of populism.
Huhtasaari, 38, is in her element on the campaign trail. Speaking in downtown Helsinki to a devoted crowd that braved the height of winter to hear her speak, she rolled out the greatest hits of her populist platform: ranting against a heavy-handed European Union that has turned "Finland into its province," an out-of-touch Finnish political elite indifferent to the working class, and the perils of large-scale - mainly Muslim - immigration.
She broke up her speech by going off-script and engaging with the crowd, shaking hands and offsetting her fiery rhetoric with a smile before telling her supporters to "take their country back" and ending the 30-minute gathering with her rallying cry of choice: "Finland first!"
Unlike Le Pen, Huhtasaari's odds of winning the presidency are a long shot."I'm here to remind people that the Finns Party is truly an alternative to the mainstream," Huhtasaari told POLITICO in an interview. "I want to change the direction of Finland and take back our independence."
Her strong comments about immigrants and homosexuality have broken the mold of Finland's traditionally staid politics and her silver-blonde hair and bombastic speeches have earned Huhtasaari the moniker of "Finland's Marine Le Pen" in the local press.
But unlike Le Pen, Huhtasaari's odds of winning the presidency are a long shot. President Sauli Niinistö is extremely popular and polls from the state broadcaster YLE show him garnering 63 percent of the vote. Huhtasaari is at 6 percent according to a recent poll, placing her in fourth behind Green League candidate Pekka Haavisto and tied with independent Paavo Väyrynen. And while the race is set to tighten in the days before the vote, the main tension has been whether Niinistö will win in the first round of voting on Sunday or be forced into a runoff on February 11.
However, Huhtasaari has not let her candidacy go to waste. The inexperienced politician - she's been in parliament for only three years - has used the national platform to prime the Finns Party's base ahead of parliamentary and European elections in 2019 and regain momentum following its removal from the coalition government last summer.
"She's circulating the rhetoric of many other populist leaders" - Tuija SaresmaThe presidential bid has also been a dress rehearsal to hone her political skills and introduce her message into mainstream Finnish politics, which Huhtasaari believes is fertile terrain for her populist ideas.
"Finland is a little bit late if you compare it to other European countries," Huhtasaari said. "Anti-immigration parties are winning and people are waking up everywhere. They're waking up now here, too."
Making Finland Great Again
Huhtasaari's style is a patchwork of other anti-immigrant populist politicians, borrowing Le Pen's merging of tough nationalism and motherhood, adopting former United Kingdom Independence Party leader Nigel Farage's Euroskepticism, and remixing Trump's slogans to local versions - "Finland first!" "Let's take Finland back!" Even the American president's iconic baseball cap has been reinterpreted as a purple beanie with "Laura" written on the side.
"She's circulating the rhetoric of many other populist leaders," said Tuija Saresma, an expert on right-wing populism at the University of Jyväskylä. "It doesn't matter if what she says is true or not, her supporters still stand by her. This is a new phenomenon for Finland."
Before entering parliament, Huhtasaari was a teacher of religion and taught children with special needs, and she's extended this personal touch to her politics. This has allowed Huhtasaari, the vice president of the Finns Party, to emerge as its public face, while Jussi Halla-aho, the party's leader and a member of European Parliament, stays in the background as a strategist.
Halla-aho has a reputation for being the enfant terrible of Finnish politics, shocking the establishment in the past by describing Islam as a religion of pedophiles, saying that Somalis were genetically predisposed to theft, and that Greece's debt problems could only be solved with a military junta.
"Before the rise of the Finns Party, we were used to a very subdued form of politics," Saresma said. "But that's changing. Politics is becoming more emotional."
© Jussi Nukari/AFP via Getty ImagesHalla-aho has a reputation for being the enfant terrible of Finnish politics
Catching fire, again
After a strong showing in the 2011 parliamentary election, the Finns Party became the country's second-most popular party in 2015 and joined the ruling coalition in parliament. However, the compromises needed to govern within a coalition and an unpopular austerity package removed their shine as a populist opposition party and saw their support fall.
Rebuilding and charting a new course forward has been the central mission of Huhtasaari's run for president, but gaining back the lost momentum is no simple task. While populist winds might be blowing elsewhere, the conditions don't look so favorable in Finland where the economy is recovering, the refugee crisis has slowed, and arduous Brexit negotiations have dampened any appeal for leaving the EU.
But while Huhtasaari and the Finns Party face a steep uphill climb, they've managed to have an effect on the election and Finnish politics at large. Years in government have allowed the party to pursue a stricter immigration policy, which in addition to Huhtasaari's tough stance, has shifted the debate during the election. According to Johanna Vuorelma, editor-in-chief of the Finnish news site Politiikasta, the Finns Party has succeeded in moving the country's immigration debate to the right, but has also given room for other candidates and parties to steal potential voters by adopting similar policies and rhetoric.
"They've managed to push the needle forward," Vuorelma said. "They've done it successfully, but they've lost some votes in doing so."
Moving forward, according to Emilia Palonen, a populism expert at the University of Helsinki, Huhtasaari needs to find a way to broaden the party's appeal beyond immigration hard-liners.
"They've doubled down on a very narrow platform and may have backed themselves into a corner," Palonen said.
In Huhtasaari's mind, however, her party's brightest days are still ahead and she plans to "stick to her values."
Her inexperience has shown at times during the election campaign: She's struggled with policy issues in televised debates, was criticized for being unable to stop reciting slogans during an interview with the state broadcaster YLE, and has been accused of plagiarizing her thesis. Still, she's managed to emerge from the fray largely intact and has no plans of changing her brand as Finland's leading populist insurgent.
"I look at Nigel Farage's example. It took 17 years, but Brexit came," Huhtasaari said. "I don't plan to wait that long."
Another “anti-establishment” candidate -and IMO more credible- is Paavo Väyrynen, who has long track record in Finnish politics; his political career started 1970: he's been elected 11 times in Finnish parliament, and has been minister in five different decades. Väyrynen advocates so called Paasikivi-Kekkonen doctrine: stable and healthy relations with Russia. He criticizes sanctions against Russia and has also been outspoken about US involvement behind Ukraine 2014 coup d'état.
Finns party leader Halla-Aho -enthusiastic NATO advocate himself- has accused Väyrynen of being a "Putinist". The Finns Party have lost momentum because they're governing party and have basically broken most of their populist election promises. I think with Huhtasaari they've gained some voters back.