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this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2024
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As a concept, yes.
What doesn’t make sense is to not vote, vote empty or Donald Duck, or vote a random candidate, or ask a friend who are they voting and just blindly do the same. Probably other ways that don’t make sense too, but that’s at least a few off the top of my head.
Only thing that does make sense is to look into each candidate, then think about what’s important to you, and vote for the one who seems to be the best candidate in your opinion. Use what ever values or metrics that you find important to you.
The candidates are all qualified for the job, and the position holds not much real-world power, at least nowhere enough to cause mayhem like what was seen a few years ago in the U.S. So really, we’ll be fine with any one of them. Worst thing that can happen is six years of cringe and bad memes, but very little damage to anything or anyone.
There are a couple of candidates I would not like to see as president. Mostly because I don't like their politics, but also because people listen to what the president says.
Halla-Aho as president would be a bit of a disaster, at the very least from a PR standpoint but also because it'd embolden the extremist right wing he represents. I don't want the country's representative to be someone who has eg. publicly fantasized about shooting a gay person and who has some very interesting opinions about Breivik (and who Breivik has said is one of his political inspirations)
While you're absolutely correct I'd like to raise a point which DKKHGGGj already did. President is also a influencer of sorts and words coming from his/her mouth carry quite a bit of weight. So, in that regard there's at least some impact on the society and general values of the population drift into whatever direction the president chooses to take. Not a huge amount, but more than nothing. And actual impact depends heavily on who's selected and what kind of support base they have.
Right, I would definitely vote based on ideology for an executive position like parliament/Prime Minister, but I wonder if an "influencer" position like the Finnish President would be better to pick a candidate with more expertise and who avoids party ideology.