According to a recent poll published in the daily newspaper Kaleva last week, the citizens of Finland are highly satisfied with their current President. Tarja Halonen won a clear majority of the votes in a recent popularity poll.
Taylor Nelson Sofres conducted the poll and found that 73 percent of the population were satisfied with Tarja Halonen and her work as the President. Among the satisfied respondents, 23 percent claimed to be very satisfied while half of those surveyed were fairly satisfied. Only 11 per cent of those surveyed claimed to be dissatisfied with President Halonen.
Although the poll indicates a slight drop in the President’s popularity, the numbers of those questioned are increasing slightly: over 900 people were interviewed over two weeks in April and experts believe that there is a three per cent margin for error in the survey in either direction.
President Halonen was elected into her first six year term of office in 2000. She was re-elected in January 2006. She is the first female to be elected to the office in Finland. In December 2003, one poll indicated that she had 88 per cent of the public’s approval, the highest ratings she has achieved in office to date.
President Halonen speaks Finnish, Swedish, English, German, French, Afrikaans, and Estonian.