HELSINKI (Reuters) – Centre-right candidate Alexander Stubb of Finland's National Coalition Party led the first round of the country's presidential election on Sunday, with 28.3 percent support from advance ballots, justice ministry data showed as polls closed.
The liberal Green Party member Pekka Haavisto was second with 25.8 percent support, followed by the nationalist Finns Party's Jussi Halla-aho at 16.1 percent, the data showed as 61.3 percent of all votes cast were counted.
A second-round run-off between the top two contenders will be held on Feb 11 if no candidate obtains more than 50 percent of the votes in Sunday's election.
Finland elects a new president to lead the country's foreign and security policy in its new role within NATO after it broke with decades of non-alignment to join the Western defence alliance in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
"It's a lot more than I dared to expect, I am very content and grateful," Stubb, a former prime minister, told public broadcaster Yle.
Haavisto, who served as foreign minister until last year, said he expected to go through to the second round.
"This is a splendid result from the first round and a very big gap to those behind us, so I believe we will move to the second round with Alexander Stubb," he told Yle.
The Nordic country's admission to NATO last year drew threats of "counter measures" from its much larger neighbour. In December, Finland closed its entire border with Russia to passenger traffic in response to a surge in migrants trying to cross. Moscow denied Finnish charges it was sending the migrants there.