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Having a dual citizenship (Australian and Finnish) affected some dual action over
the last few days: Yesterday was the Australia Day, and I went to Newport Beach
Australia Day Ceremonies for my never-ending photo-opportunities (see the
resulting subdued photo set here), and I'm just back from the Finnish Consulate
in Sydney, where I exercised my right to vote in Finnish elections. It's the second
round of the Presidential Elections, with two candidates left, since nobody
received a simple majority of more than 50 % of the votes on the first round.
The contest now is between the candidates from the Kokoomus Party
(conservatives) and the Greens Party, Sauli Niinistö and Pekka Haavisto
respectively. My vote went to Haavisto, the green underdog, who also happens to
be openly gay. It was remarkable that on the first round more than a third of the
voters in the capital Helsinki gave their vote to him.
At the pre-polling station, the Finnish Consulate, I was predictably not allowed to
take photos, but before asking I managed to steal this photo of the voting
officials' desk, with the current President of Finland Ms. Tarja Halonen in the
black-and-white photo on the wall in the background. I embedded the images of
Haavisto and Niinistö to the left and right respectively:
By the way, my other civic duty, the pending jury service here in Sydney, is still
up in the air. I haven't yet received a reply to my exemption application! And I'm
now officially enrolled to start my full time ceramics studies at the same time as
the trial (which is estimated to last 12 weeks) I'm booked for my jury duty starts.
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