Niinistö, Sauli Väinämö, 1948–, Finnish political leader. A lawyer and a member of the center-right National Coalition party (NCP), he was first elected to parliament in 1987. Leader of the NCP from 1994 to 2001, Niinistö served as deputy prime minister (1995–2001), justice minister (1995–96), and finance minister (1996–2003); in the last post he oversaw Finland's economic recovery and entry into the eurozone. He was a vice president of the European Investment Bank from 2003 to 2007, when he again entered parliament and served as its speaker (2007–11). Niinistö, who had run unsuccessfully for president of Finland in 2006, won the office in 2012, becoming Finland's first conservative president since the 1950s. He was reelected in 2018.
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