Election of Archbishop of Finland goes to second round

Yesterday, the electors of the new Archbishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (ELCF) cast their votes in the first round of the election. If none of the candidates would get a majority of the votes, the two most successful candidates would go to the second round to be held on March 11, 2010.

Of the seven candidates, the two most successful were the Bishop of the Archdiocese of Turku, Kari Mäkinen (55) with 393 votes and professor Miikka Ruokanen (56) with 285. Since there were more than 1.200 electors, they both fell short of the mark, so a second round will be needed. The third candidate, Bishop Seppo Häkkinen, gathered 263 votes and crowded Ruokanen.
This result means that there will be a dichotomy among the electorate, since Mäkinen is fairly liberal, while Ruokanen is a conservative. Om the other hand, Ruokanen is a far more charismatic personality than Mäkinen, who is rather unknown outside the Archdiocese. In the electorate, the Archdiocese is, however, strongly overrepresented, and Mäkinen has a solid following there. Perhaps we can expect him to be elected to succeed the present Archbishop Jukka Paarma, who will retire in June.

News and links here, here, here (with the usual disgusting debate) and here. And surely elsewhere, as well...