Since none of the candidates of the Finnish presidential elections reached the necessary absolute majority, the two best placed will meet in a run-off on the 29th of January 2006.

These are incumbent Tarja Halonen (Social Democrat Party) and the present Vice-President of the European Investment Bank and former Finance Minister Sauli Niinistö (National Coalition Party).

Halonen took 46.3% of the vote, followed by Sauli Niinistö (24.1%), who thus beat the challenge of Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre Party, 18.6%). Behind the three major hopefuls, there was a sizeable gap to the Greens' Heidi Hautala (3.5%) and Timo Soini, True Finns (3.4%). The other three candidates - Bjarne Kallis (Christian Democrats), Henrik Lax (Swedish People's Party) and Arto Lahti (Independent) - all collected no more than 2% of the votes and only around 4% between them. The total voter turnout was 73.8%.

CG