Finns are casting ballots in a presidential election, with incumbent Sauli Niinisto considered the favourite to win the first round of voting in the Nordic nation.
Recent polls predict the 69-year-old Niinisto will get between 58 and 63 per cent of the vote while his closest rival, Pekka Haavisto of the Greens, would garner some 14 per cent.
If none of the eight candidates running on Sunday achieves a majority, the top two will face each other in a February 11 runoff. The post has a six-year term.
Niinisto, a former finance minister and parliament speaker, has been popular since taking office in 2012. He is running as an independent with no association to the conservative National Coalition Party that he earlier chaired.
Jockeying for third place are the populist-nationalist Finns Party candidate Laura Huhtasaari - one of three women in the field - and veteran Centre Party politician Paavo Vayrynen who is running as an independent.
Huhtasaari, a 38-year-old former teacher, is trying to bring anti-immigration populist ideas back to mainstream Finnish politics.
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