With four and a half months to go until election day, Yle's latest poll found that Pekka Haavisto (Green) is the early frontrunner to be the next president of Finland with 31 percent of respondents saying they would vote for him.
In second spot is National Coalition candidate Alexander Stubb, who would get the support of some 19 percent of respondents. Much of Stubb's backing comes from supporters of his own party and the Swedish People's Party (SPP), according to polling data.
Olli Rehn (Cen), Mika Aaltola and Jussi Halla-aho (Finns) all polled around the 10 percent mark.
"Haavisto gets support especially from his own party, the Green League, but also quite a bit from the SDP, Left Alliance and the SPP," said pollster Tuomo Turja. "Among supporters of those four parties, Haavisto is the most-favoured candidate."
Among Left Alliance supporters Haavisto narrowly beats the party's own candidate Li Andersson 46-44. For SDP backers Haavisto gets 44 percent support, clearly better than the party's probable candidate Jutta Urpilainen (SDP), who is backed by 27 percent of SDP supporters in the poll.
Rehn, Aaltola and Haavisto, along with a host of other underdog candidates, have eschewed party political endorsement in favour of a voter association candidacy. They are currently collecting the required 20,000 supporter cards needed to register.
Stubb challenging Haavisto
The SPP has decided not to run a candidate in the election, to avoid splitting the liberal-leaning vote. According to Yle's poll, around half of SPP backers support Haavisto, and around a third support Stubb.
"According to this poll Haavisto would beat all the other candidates in a possible second round, but if his opponent is Stubb the contest would be quite even," said Turja.
Yle's poll also covered potential second-round matchups. Haavisto came out on top in all those possible contests, but the 45-42 result against Stubb was the closest.
The NCP candidate can expect to secure support from Centre voters and those further right on the political spectrum, with Haavisto especially losing out among Finns Party voters in a second-round contest with Stubb.
Haavisto is favoured among women polled, with 37 percent saying they'd support him in the first round. Among men Haavisto polled 25 percent.
In a second-round run-off against Stubb the survey suggests Haavisto would win by 55-34 among women voters, but lose 36-50 among men.
