Finland must crack down on hate speech against minorities if it is to appear “united against all external threats”, including from Russia, a leading candidate in the country’s presidential election has said. The Nordic country, which is governed by a coalition including the far-right Finns party, needs to “grow in tolerance”, said Pekka Haavisto, a former foreign minister who would become Finland’s first Green and first out gay president if he is elected. In addition to being a pressing social issue, reducing the volume of hate speech aimed at making people of colour and others feel “scared of expressing their opinions” was key to national security, he added, saying external actors might seek to exploit domestic divisions. “If we want to keep the country united against all external threats, including Russian threats, it is very important that we can handle these types of topics nationally because otherwise these are misused against us and all kinds of provocations can appear. It’s important that we grow in tolerance as Finns,” Haavisto told the Guardian in an interview. The election of the next Finnish president, taking place against a backdrop of escalating geopolitical drama on the country’s border with Russia, is seen as crucial to Finland’s future direction. The head of state and commander-in-chief of the army is responsible for foreign policy, in cooperation with the government, and represents Finland at Nato summits, as well as in meetings with international leaders. Haavisto, 65, who negotiated Finland’s record-fast accession to Nato last year, is a frontrunner alongside Alexander Stubb, a former prime minister and foreign minister. Jussi Halla-aho, the former leader of the far-right Finns party, is also gaining in the polls in a crowded field of candidates. However, Haavisto, who ran unsuccessfully in 2018 and 2012 and is running as an independent this time, believes his focus on security makes him uniquely placed to take on the challenge of the presidency. On the campaign trail, he said, security was top of the agenda, with people discussing it “more than ever”. “People are coming to discussions [and] you could hear a nail dropping in the room when you speak about security topics,” he said. The election, the first round of which takes place on 28 January, with a possible second round two weeks later, comes at a high-stakes time for Finland, with security issues dominating conversation since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Finland’s subsequent Nato membership. Tensions have heightened in recent months, with Finland temporarily shutting its eastern border – which remains closed until at least 11 February – and accusing Russia of using asylum seekers in a “hybrid operation”. Haavisto supports the border closure, describing it as “the only thing you can do to show Russians we are serious”. But he has called for a rise in refugee quotas for women and girls from Afghanistan and Iran, and criticised those who use Russia’s actions on the border to support rhetoric against asylum seekers. If elected, he said a priority of his presidency would be to bring Finland together to make it better equipped to withstand outside pressure. “Issues like racism and hate speech and the mood in the population, how to keep Finland united, is a big topic for the future,” he said. Last year, Finnish politics took a dramatic shift to the right when the former prime minister, the Social Democrat Sanna Marin, was ousted in a parliamentary election and replaced by a coalition including the far-right Finns party and led by the conservative Petteri Orpo. It has been described as Finland’s most right-wing administration ever. Without naming names, Haavisto said some parties were “more tolerant [of] those kinds of [hate speech] expressions”, citing the importance of freedom of speech. “My approach is that actually hate speech has very little to do with freedom of speech because its purpose is to silence people and make them scared of expressing their opinions and views. And we still have this phenomenon, unfortunately, in Finland,” he said. Many people of colour living in Finland are subjected to racism, he said, which as president he would want to change. “Our approach to people will be based on equality.” Haavisto was foreign minister for four years before stepping down in June, working closely with Sauli Niinistö, the conservative incumbent president who has been in office for 12 years. Finland and Sweden submitted their Nato applications at the same time, but Helsinki joined the alliance in April while Stockholm is still waiting to join. Haavisto’s secret to negotiating a fast accession was convincing all Nato member states of Finland’s usefulness to the alliance, he said. In the case of Turkey, which along with Hungary is continuing to stall Sweden’s accession, he made sure “always to start with the topics that were closest to the hearts of the Turks”, including Syria, Yemen and the Horn of Africa and to recognise Turkey’s diplomatic successes. Sweden’s Nato membership remains crucial to Finland, he said, but incidents such as the hanging of an Erdoğan effigy and Qur’an burning protests have not helped progress. “It somehow made it almost like a fight between religions or fight between cultures,” he said. On the campaign trail, on which his mode of transport is a bus usually used by Finnish rock bands, the mood is “very serious”, he said. But there have also been lighter moments, such as being a DJ and playing to students in Helsinki under the name “DJ Pexi”. Haavisto said campaigning with his partner, Antonio Flores, 45, who is Ecuadorian, had already influenced public opinion on same-sex marriages and same-sex couples. “Because they can see that somebody at the top of power can also represent these kinds of values,” he said. Hanna Wass, vice-dean at the faculty of social sciences at the University of Helsinki, said “it would be a huge surprise” if Stubb and Haavisto did not make it to the second round. However, she predicted the shift to the right in April’s parliamentary elections was likely to benefit Stubb, whose core supporters, she said, were more likely to vote.