Paavo Väyrynen is the only candidate in the presidential race whose campaign has not yet filed voluntary projections on campaign funding and spending. Details of his campaign budget have, however, appeared in the media and his campaign manager told Yle that it hasn't yet been decided whether or not a more formal report will be filed.
"We have an awful lot to add to what's already been said in public," Väyrynen's campaign manager Seppo Hauta-aho told Yle.
According to Hauta-aho, the budget is, "in the sort of 100,000 euro range, maybe a bit more."
The single largest source of funding for Väyrynen's campaign is from the sale of drinking mugs. The collection contains three mugs, one emblazoned with a portrait of the candidate wearing a crown and holding a sceptre. The other two feature Väyrynen with his wife, Vuokko.
A small portion of Väyrynen's funding has come from book sales and medallions. 30 euro membership fees to join the voters' association backing this candidate, as well as a handful of private donations of a few hundred, have together provided another 15,000 euros.
"And the rest is Paavo's own money," says campaign manager Hauta-aho.
Mugs have become somewhat of a Väyrynen trademark. The newspaper Ilta-Sanomat has calculated that the combined mug sales by Väyrynen's campaigns in the 2012 presidential election, the last Euro-Parliament election and the last Finnish parliamentary election were 21,000 units. At 30 euros a mug, that works out at 630,000 euros in sales.
Rankings
Paavo Väyrynen's campaign budget ranks second to last among funding for candidates in the 2018 election. Right now, the most modest campaign in financial terms (148,000 euros) is being run by the Left Alliance candidate Merja Kyllönen.
In ascending order of campaign funding, the others are: the Finns Party's Laura Huhtasaari (210,000 euros), the Green's Pekka Haavisto (234, 024.85 to the cent), the Swedish People's Party's Nils Torvalds (420,000), the Centre Party's Matti Vanhanen (550,000), Social Democrat Tuula Haatainen (636,500), and incumbent Sauli Niinistö, who is also backed by a voters' association (1,500,000).
Most of Niinistö's funding comes from financiers and the business sector. The single largest contribution to his campaign (100,000) is the Yksityisyrittäjäin Säätiö (Foundation for Private Entrepreneurs).
The bulk of Tuula Haatainen's campaign funding has been provided by her Social Democratic Party which has put up 450,000 euros. Her next largest contributors are unions, which together have put 140,500 into the pot.
The Centre's Matti Vanhanen has received even more from his party, 485,000 euros, plus 50,000 from businesses, but all in the form of contributions of fewer than 1,500 euros each.
The biggest sources that Nils Torvalds has tapped into are Swedish-speaking associations (260,000) and his party (110,000).
Haavisto's fundraising looks to be widely spread out over a large number of contributors. The largest are the Green League that he represents (96,850.71) and private individuals (59,174.15).
The contents of Laura Huhtasaari's campaign chest are 200,000 from her party and 10,000 from private contributors.
Merja Kyllönen got 100,000 in party funding and another 30,000 in individual, private contributions.
Advertising and petrol
Paavo Väyrynen's campaign manager says that advertising of one sort or another has, in practice, taken up the candidate's entire budget.
"Other expenses are really small, mainly the campaign office rent and incidental expenses for campaign workers. The rest has gone into paying for posters, banners, newspaper advertisements, radio and TV ads and online advertising. There are no staff costs or outside ad agency costs," Seppo Hauta-aho explains.
"Whenever Paavo has used his own car, he hasn't asked for the expenses to be covered. Usually he has a driver and the driver is paid a fee," Hauta-aho adds.
Spending on advertising is the largest outlay for all the candidates.
Haatainen, Haavisto and Kyllönen have been running the most "modern" campaigns with the most spending on online advertising. After spending 172,000 to reach voters at computers and on mobile devices, Haatainen had nothing left over for TV ads. Haavisto and Kyllönen didn't put a cent into television or radio ads.
Laura Huhtasaari apparently still trusts in the public's devotion to radio, spending 85,000 for on-air ads. That is 50,000 more than big-budget Niinistö spent.
Matti Vanhanen, in turn, is obviously a believer in the power of television. His campaign’s largest single outlay was 120,000 euros for TV advertising.
Literacy and the power of the printed word are clearly articles of faith for Nils Torvalds, who proportionally spent the most on newspaper advertising (180,000), and Sauli Niinistö who spent the most in real terms (310,000).
Sausages and "other expenses"
Spending on meet-and-greet campaign events, where it's not unknown to offer the public grilled sausages, also gives an indication of what kind of campaigns the candidates have been running.
Sauli Niinistö has spent the most on these (400,000 euros), followed by Vanhanen (60,000), with Torvalds and Haatainen neck-to-neck (25,000 each). Kyllönen has managed with a mere 9,000 euros.
As of this writing, the black boxes marked "other expenses" are as of yet unexplained. Questions are being raised concerning how, and on what, Sauli Niinistö's campaign is spending 350,000 euros in this category, and where Haatainen's 119,000 and Torvalds' 75,000 have gone.
The 5,000 in "other expenses" claimed by Huhtasaari are likely to be the same kind of petrol and campaign trail transport costs as pointed to by Väyrynen's campaign manager.