Leadership Quote by Harri Holkeri

Politics runs on two currencies: power and trust. Harri Holkeri’s line is a blunt reminder that you can’t spend one without replenishing the other. “Rebuilding the confidence” signals damage has already been done; this isn’t idealistic consensus-talk, it’s triage. The verb matters: confidence isn’t discovered, it’s repaired, like a bridge after someone drove a truck through the guardrail.

Holkeri, a Finnish statesman who later served as a UN diplomat, is speaking from the world where governing is less about winning arguments than making tomorrow’s negotiations possible. In coalition-heavy systems like Finland’s, “between parties” is literal: rivals have to share cabinets, budgets, and blame. You can push legislation through once on raw leverage, but you can’t run a country that way for long without the machinery seizing up. The quote’s quiet threat is that success is not a single vote; it’s sustained cooperation under pressure.

The subtext is also disciplinary. It shifts responsibility away from abstract “polarization” and onto actors who broke faith: stop treating politics as a series of tactical humiliations. Confidence is the precondition for compromise because it reduces the fear that any concession will be pocketed and weaponized later. No trust, no risk-taking; no risk-taking, no deals.

Holkeri’s intent is pragmatic, almost managerial: before you draft the next agreement, fix the relationship that makes agreements meaningful. Otherwise every promise becomes a trap, and every negotiation a slow-motion collapse.