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Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 2 and 3 January 1972. [1]
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Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 2 and 3 January 1972. [1]
Prime Minister Ahti Karjalainen's centre-left coalition government lost the Finnish People's Democratic League in March 1971 as they opposed the removal of government subsidies from certain foods whose prices rose, and was forced to resign in October 1971, due to the disagreements between the Social Democratic Party and the Centre Party over the amount of agricultural subsidies. According to some historians, politicians and journalists, such as Allan Tiitta, Seppo Zetterberg, Johannes Virolainen, Veikko Vennamo and Pekka Hyvärinen, an underlying reason for these early parliamentary elections was President Urho Kekkonen's desire to continue in office without regular presidential elections which had been scheduled for 1974. Re-election as President through exceptional means would require a five-sixths majority in Parliament and, according to the above analysts, Kekkonen hoped that such early elections would reduce the number of Finnish Rural Party MPs, and would thus make the exceptional electoral law's passage in Parliament easier.
Kekkonen remembered bitterly the loud and constant criticism of himself and of his foreign policy that Rural Party leader Veikko Vennamo had practised during the 1968 presidential election campaign, and he was determined not to submit himself to such a vicious election campaign this time. Finland was also negotiating a free trade agreement with the European Economic Community, and most Finnish politicians believed that Finland could get a favourable free trade agreement with President Kekkonen's help.
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| Party | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | |
| Social Democratic Party | 664,724 | 25.78 | 55 | +3 | |
| National Coalition Party | 453,434 | 17.59 | 34 | –3 | |
| Finnish People's Democratic League | 438,757 | 17.02 | 37 | +1 | |
| Centre Party | 423,039 | 16.41 | 35 | –1 | |
| Finnish Rural Party | 236,206 | 9.16 | 18 | 0 | |
| Liberal People's Party | 132,955 | 5.16 | 7 | –1 | |
| Swedish People's Party | 130,407 | 5.06 | 9 | –2 | |
| Finnish Christian League | 65,228 | 2.53 | 4 | +3 | |
| Social Democratic Union of Workers and Smallholders | 25,527 | 0.99 | 0 | 0 | |
| Åland Coalition | 7,672 | 0.30 | 1 | 0 | |
| Total | 2,577,949 | 100.00 | 200 | 0 | |
| Valid votes | 2,577,949 | 99.65 | |||
| Invalid/blank votes | 9,111 | 0.35 | |||
| Total votes | 2,587,060 | 100.00 | |||
| Registered voters/turnout | 3,178,011 | 81.41 | |||
| Source: Tilastokeskus 2004 [2] | |||||
| Electoral district | Total seats | Seats won | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SDP | SKDL | Kesk | Kok | SMP | RKP | LKP | SKL | ÅS | ||
| Åland | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| Central Finland | 10 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
| Häme | 15 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 1 | ||||
| Helsinki | 22 | 7 | 4 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 2 | |||
| Kymi | 15 | 6 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | |||
| Lapland | 9 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| North Karelia | 8 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | ||||
| North Savo | 11 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | ||||
| Oulu | 18 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 1 | |||
| Pirkanmaa | 13 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Satakunta | 13 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | ||||
| South Savo | 10 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Uusima | 21 | 8 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | ||
| Vaasa | 18 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 3 | |||
| Varsinais-Suomi | 16 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Total | 200 | 55 | 37 | 35 | 34 | 18 | 9 | 7 | 4 | 1 |
| Source: Statistics Finland [3] | ||||||||||
To most other parties' surprise, the Rural Party retained their 18 MPs. Government formation was difficult due to partisan bickering and the elections' rather inconclusive results. Rafael Paasio of the Social Democrats formed a minority government of his own party in February 1972, replacing the Helsinki city manager Teuvo Aura's liberal caretaker government. Finally, after tough negotiations, Social Democrat Kalevi Sorsa managed to form a new centre-left majority government that included the Social Democrats, the Centre Party, the Swedish People's Party and the Liberal People's Party in September 1972.
President Kekkonen's goal of re-election by Parliament was achieved in January 1973. It was helped by the Rural Party splitting as thirteen of their MPs left to form the Finnish People's Unity Party, and by most National Coalition MPs supporting his re-election. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
Urho Kaleva Kekkonen, often referred to by his initials UKK, was a Finnish politician who served as the eighth and longest-serving president of Finland from 1956 to 1982. He also served as prime minister, and held various other cabinet positions. He was the third and most recent president from the Agrarian League/Centre Party. Head of state for nearly 26 years, he dominated Finnish politics for 31 years overall. Holding a large amount of power, he won his later elections with little opposition and has often been classified as an autocrat.
Väinö Alfred Tanner was a leading figure in the Social Democratic Party of Finland, and a pioneer and leader of the cooperative movement in Finland. He was Prime Minister of Finland in 1926–1927.
The Centre Party, officially the Centre Party of Finland, is an agrarian-centrist political party in Finland. Ideologically, the Centre Party is positioned in the centre of the political spectrum. It has been described as liberal, social-liberal, liberal-conservative, and conservative-liberal. The party’s leader is Antti Kaikkonen, who was elected in June 2024 to succeed former minister Annika Saarikko. As of June 2023, the party has been a part of the parliamentary opposition.
Johannes Virolainen was a Finnish politician and who served as 30th Prime Minister of Finland, helped inhabitants of Karelia, opposed the use of alcohol and created Mandatory Swedish in Finnish basic schools.
Veikko Emil Aleksander Vennamo was a Finnish politician. In 1959, he founded the Finnish Rural Party, which was succeeded by the True Finns in 1995. He had originally been the leader of a faction of the Agrarian League. When his opponent, Urho Kekkonen, was elected president of Finland, Vennamo broke off his Agrarian League affiliation. Vennamo was a member of Parliament in 1945–1962 and 1966–1987. He was also the director of the Agricultural ministry's Resettlement office in 1944–1959 and was responsible for the resettlement of the farmers evacuated from the ceded Karelia. Later he was a department director at the Board of Customs.
Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 6 and 7 July 1958. The communist Finnish People's Democratic League emerged as the largest party, but was unable to form a government.
Parliamentary elections were held in the Grand Duchy of Finland on 1 and 2 October 1917. The general voter turnout was higher than in previous elections. The Social Democrats lost the absolute majority that they had had in the previous two elections. In other words, the "bourgeois" (non-socialist) parties taken together now had more than half the seats.
Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 1 and 2 July 1951.
Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 7 and 8 March 1954.
Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 4 and 5 February 1962.
Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 20 and 21 March 1966. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) overtook the Centre Party as the largest faction in Parliament. Rafael Paasio of the SDP subsequently became Prime Minister and formed a popular front government consisting of the SDP, the Centre Party, the People's Democratic League (SKDL), and the Social Democratic Union of Workers and Smallholders (TPSL) in May 1966.
Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 15 and 16 March 1970.
Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 21 and 22 September 1975.
Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 18 and 19 March 1979.
The Finnish Rural Party was an agrarian and populist political party in Finland. Starting as a breakaway faction of the Agrarian League in 1959 as the Small Peasants' Party of Finland, the party was identified with the person of Veikko Vennamo, a former Agrarian League Member of Parliament known for his opposition to the politics of President Urho Kekkonen. Vennamo was chairman of the Finnish Rural Party between 1959 and 1979.
Finnish People's Unity Party was a split from the Rural Party of Finland. The party was formed as some of the members of the parliamentary group of the Rural Party of Finland wanted to support the idea of re-electing the president of Finland Urho Kekkonen without presidential elections for the years 1974–1978. This was impossible for the chairman Veikko Vennamo due to the longstanding disputes between Vennamo and the Centre Party.
Two-stage presidential elections were held in Finland in 1950, the first time the public had been involved in a presidential election since 1937 as three non-popular elections had taken place in 1940, 1943 and 1946. On 16 and 17 January the public elected presidential electors to an electoral college. They in turn elected the President. The result was a victory for Juho Kusti Paasikivi, who won on the first ballot. The turnout for the popular vote was 63.8%. President Paasikivi was at first reluctant to seek re-election, at least in regular presidential elections. He considered asking the Finnish Parliament to re-elect him through another emergency law. Former President Ståhlberg, who acted as his informal advisor, persuaded him to seek re-election through normal means when he bluntly told Paasikivi: "If the Finnish people would not bother to elect a President every six years, they truly would not deserve an independent and democratic republic." Paasikivi conducted a passive, "front-porch" style campaign, making few speeches. By contrast, the Agrarian presidential candidate, Urho Kekkonen, spoke in about 130 election meetings. The Communists claimed that Paasikivi had made mistakes in his foreign policy and had not truly pursued a peaceful and friendly foreign policy towards the Soviet Union. The Agrarians criticized Paasikivi more subtly and indirectly, referring to his advanced age, and speaking anecdotally about aged masters of farmhouses, who had not realized in time that they should have surrendered their houses' leadership to their sons. Kekkonen claimed that the incumbent Social Democratic minority government of Prime Minister K.A. Fagerholm had neglected the Finnish farmers and the unemployed. Kekkonen also championed a non-partisan democracy that would be neither a social democracy nor a people's democracy. The Communists hoped that their presidential candidate, former Prime Minister Mauno Pekkala, would draw votes away from the Social Democrats, because Pekkala was a former Social Democrat. The Agrarians lost over four per cent of their share of the vote compared to the 1948 parliamentary elections. This loss ensured Paasikivi's re-election. Otherwise Kekkonen could have been narrowly elected President - provided that all the Communist and People's Democratic presidential electors would also have voted for him.
Two-stage presidential elections were held in Finland in 1968. On 15 and 16 January the public elected presidential electors to an electoral college. They in turn elected the President. The result was a victory for Urho Kekkonen, who won on the first ballot. The turnout for the popular vote was 70%.
Two-stage presidential elections were held in Finland in 1978. They were the first elections since 1968, as Parliament had extended Urho Kekkonen's term by four years. The public elected presidential electors to an electoral college on 15 and 16 January. The electors, in turn assembled in Helsinki on 15 February to formally elect the President. Urho Kekkonen, president since 1956, was re-elected on the first ballot by the electors. The turnout for the popular vote was 64%.
The Night Frost Crisis or the Night Frost was a political crisis that occurred in Soviet–Finnish relations in the autumn of 1958. It arose from Soviet dissatisfaction with Finnish domestic policy and in particular with the composition of the third government to be formed under Prime Minister Karl-August Fagerholm. As a result of the crisis, the Soviet Union withdrew its ambassador from Helsinki and put pressure on the Finnish government to resign. The crisis was given its name by Nikita Khrushchev, who declared that relations between the countries had become subject to a "night frost".
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