A memorial honouring former President of the Republic of Finland Mauno Koivisto is to be erected in Helsinki, informed the Government Communications Department.
The memorial will be unveiled on 25 November 2023 to mark the centenary of the birth of Koivisto. The Prime Minister's Office has appointed a Committee for the project for the period 16 December 2019 to 31 December 2023. The Committee will be chaired by Prime Minister emeritus Paavo Lipponen.
The Committee will be responsible for organising a competition for the design of the memorial and for selecting the winner or winners of the design competition. The Committee will also decide the location of the memorial on the basis of proposals from the City of Helsinki.
The members of the Committee, chaired by Paavo Lipponen, are Timo Lankinen, Permanent State Under-Secretary at the Prime Minister's Office (Vice-Chair), Heikki Allonen, Master of Science, representative of Koivisto’s immediate family, Antti Ahlava, Professor at Aalto University, Pirjo Sanaksenaho, Professor at Aalto University, and Maija Tanninen-Mattila, Director at Helsinki Art Museum.
The City of Helsinki will also appoint its representative to the Committee. Sanna Helopuro, Senior Ministerial Adviser at the Prime Minister’s Office has been appointed Secretary of the Committee.
President of the Republic from 1982 to 1994
Mauno Henrik Koivisto was born on 25 November 1923 in Turku. He died at the age of 93 on 12 May 2017 in Helsinki. He was the ninth President of the Republic of Finland, in office between 1982 and 1994.
Koivisto served as prime minister in 1968–1970 and 1979–1982, and as minister of finance in 1966–1967 and in 1972. He was Governor of the Bank of Finland (Chairman of the Board) between 1968 and 1982, and worked in executive duties at the National Workers' Savings Bank of Finland between 1958 and 1967.
Furthermore, Koivisto held a long list of positions of trust and honorary memberships. As a young man he worked at a dockyard and was a primary school teacher, among other things. He studied while working and eventually completed a doctoral degree.
