Page "Tarja Halonen" Paragraph 18

Halonen was a surprising candidate as she didn't represent many traditional values: She was known as a left-wing social democratic party member, who lived in a domestic partnership, was a single parent and had resigned from the national church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland.

While Halonen started from fourth place in the presidential election polls, surprisingly in the first round of the elections she got the most votes, 40. 0 %.

Her nearest opponent, the former Prime Minister Esko Aho of the Centre Party, got 34. 4 %.