Finnish parliamentary election, 1907

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Finnish parliamentary election, 1907
Flag of Russia.svg
15–16 March 1907 1908  

All 200 seats to the Parliament
101 seats were needed for a majority

  First party Second party Third party
  Edvard Valpas.jpg Blank.png Blank.png
Leader Edvard Valpas ? ?
Party Social Democratic Finnish Young Finnish
Seats won805926
Popular vote 329,946 243,573 121,604
Percentage37.0%27.3%13.7%

  Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party
  Lille Axel.jpg Karhi.PNG Blank.png
Leader Axel Lille Otto Karhi ?
Party Swedish People's Agrarian Christian Workers'
Seats won2492
Popular vote 112,267 51,242 13,790
Percentage12.6%5.8%1.6%

Finnish Parliament 1907-1908.svg

Parliamentary elections were held in the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland on 15 and 16 March 1907. They were the first parliamentary election in which members were elected to the new Parliament of Finland by universal suffrage and the first in the world in which female members were elected.

In development or moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy is the capacity to make an informed, un-coerced decision. Autonomous organizations or institutions are independent or self-governing. Autonomy can also be defined from human resource perspective and it means a level of discretion granted to an employee in his or her work. In such cases, autonomy is known to bring some sense of job satisfaction among the employees. Autonomy is a term that is also widely used in the field of medicine. As a matter of fact, personal autonomy is greatly recognized and valued in health care.

Grand Duchy of Finland predecessor state of modern Finland

The Grand Duchy of Finland was the predecessor state of modern Finland. It existed between 1809 and 1917 as an autonomous part of the Russian Empire.

Parliament of Finland legislature of Finland

The Parliament of Finland is the unicameral supreme legislature of Finland, founded on 9 May 1906. In accordance with the Constitution of Finland, sovereignty belongs to the people, and that power is vested in the Parliament. The Parliament consists of 200 members, 199 of whom are elected every four years from 13 multi-member districts electing 7-22 MPs using the proportional d'Hondt method. In addition, there is one member from Åland.

Contents

Background

The election followed the parliamentary reform of 1906 which replaced the Diet of Finland, which was based on the Estates and had its institutional roots in the period of Swedish reign, with a modern unicameral parliament of 200 MPs. The reform was agreed upon after a general strike in Finland in 1905 during which demands for a parliamentary reform arose especially among the Socialists. This coincided with similar development in Russia which too saw a general strike and, after the Russo-Japanese War, the birth of a new institution, the Duma. This background explains why Emperor Nicholas II of Russia allowed the parliamentary reform in Finland.

Diet of Finland legislative assembly of the Grand Duchy of Finland from 1809 to 1906

The Diet of Finland, was the legislative assembly of the Grand Duchy of Finland from 1809 to 1906 and the recipient of the powers of the Swedish Riksdag of the Estates. The term valtiopäivät today means an annual session of the Parliament of Finland, the Swedish Riksdagen being the name for both the Parliament and its sessions.

Finland under Swedish rule

Finland under Swedish rule refers to the historical period when the bulk of the area that later came to constitute Finland was an integral part of Sweden. The starting point of the Swedish rule is under a large amount of uncertainty and controversy. Historical evidence of the establishing of Swedish rule in Finland exists from the late 13th century onwards. The period of Swedish rule ended on 17 September, 1809 as a result of the Finnish War.

Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production and workers' self-management, as well as the political theories and movements associated with them. Social ownership can be public, collective or cooperative ownership, or citizen ownership of equity. There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them, with social ownership being the common element shared by its various forms.

All political factions of Finland reached an agreement on the reform and the first elections were set for 1907. The 1906 reform ended the first period of attempted Russification in the Grand Duchy of Finland which had begun in 1899 and seen such dramatic episodes as the assassination of Nikolai Bobrikov, the Governor-General of Finland, in 1904.

Russification of Finland

The policy of Russification of Finland was a governmental policy of the Russian Empire aimed at limiting the special status of the Grand Duchy of Finland and possibly the termination of its political autonomy and cultural uniqueness in 1899–1905 and in 1908–1917. It was a part of a larger policy of Russification pursued by late 19th–early 20th century Russian governments which tried to abolish cultural and administrative autonomy of non-Russian minorities within the empire.

Before the election of 1907 the legislative power in the Grand Duchy had been vested in the Diet of the Estates, an age old institution of four Estates (the nobility, the clergy, the burghers and the peasants) deriving from the period of Swedish rule and representing only a small portion of the people. This kind of institution had become quite ancient by the early years of the 20th century. The new unicameral parliament was to have 200 MPs, all elected by universal and equal suffrage of citizens over 24 years of age. Women as well were allowed to vote and stand for election; Finnish women received these rights as the first women in Europe. Previously only New Zealand and South Australia had approved universal female suffrage, Finland was the third in the world to do that and the second to grant women the right to stand as candidates in election.

New Zealand Country in Oceania

New Zealand is a sovereign island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses—the North Island, and the South Island —and around 600 smaller islands. New Zealand is situated some 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly 1,000 kilometres (600 mi) south of the Pacific island areas of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. Because of its remoteness, it was one of the last lands to be settled by humans. During its long period of isolation, New Zealand developed a distinct biodiversity of animal, fungal, and plant life. The country's varied topography and its sharp mountain peaks, such as the Southern Alps, owe much to the tectonic uplift of land and volcanic eruptions. New Zealand's capital city is Wellington, while its most populous city is Auckland.

South Australia State of Australia

South Australia is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of 983,482 square kilometres (379,725 sq mi), it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, and fifth largest by population. It has a total of 1.7 million people, and its population is the second most highly centralised in Australia, after Western Australia, with more than 77 percent of South Australians living in the capital, Adelaide, or its environs. Other population centres in the state are relatively small; Mount Gambier, the second largest centre, has a population of 28,684.

Electoral system

The voting system was designed to allow voters the choice between a simple list vote and expressing more particular preferences. A voter could vote for a party list of candidates by marking it with a red line. Alternatively, the voter could rank up to three names from among the candidates on any one list in order of preference. Even further, a voter could vote for up to three persons from outside the lists by entering their names. The D'Hondt method was used to allocate seats after the list votes, preference votes and off-list votes were put together according to a somewhat complex procedure.

The D'Hondt method or the Jefferson method is a highest averages method for allocating seats, and is thus a type of party-list proportional representation. The method described is named in the United States after Thomas Jefferson, who introduced the method for proportional allocation of seats in the United States House of Representatives in 1791, and in Europe after Belgian mathematician Victor D'Hondt, who described it in 1878 for proportional allocation of parliamentary seats to the parties. There are two forms: closed list and an open list.

Campaign

The language strife of Finland was an important issue in the late 19th and early 20th century Finnish politics. Thus the first political parties of Finland, the Finnish Party and the Swedish Party, were born respectively around Fennoman and Svecoman ideas. A Liberal party was founded but soon also dissolved. The Finnish party was later split in the supporters of the "Old Finns" and the "Young Finns" who founded a party of their own. An even more important event was the founding of a Socialist party in 1899. First called the Finnish Labour Party, it adopted the name Social Democratic Party of Finland in 1903 and sought the support of urban working class and the rural landless population. Universal suffrage was naturally very important for these groups since they had no political power in the Diet of the Estates. In 1906 the Agrarian League was founded to represent the interests of peasants and in the same year the Swedish Party adopted its present name, the Swedish People's Party. The topics of the campaign into the election touched for example social issues and the parties' stances to the Russification attempts.

The Language Strife was a major conflict in mid-19th century Finland. Both the Swedish and Finnish languages were commonly used in Finland at the time, associated with descendants of Swedish colonisation and leading to class tensions among the speakers of the different languages. It became acute in the mid-19th century. The competition was considered to have officially ended when Finnish gained official language status in 1923 and became equal to the Swedish language.

A political party is an organized group of people, often with common views, who come together to contest elections and hold power in the government. The party agrees on some proposed policies and programmes, with a view to promoting the collective good or furthering their supporters' interests.

The Finnish Party was a Fennoman conservative political party in the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland and independent Finland. Born out of Finland's language strife in the 1860s, the party sought to improve the position of the Finnish language in Finnish society. Johan Vilhelm Snellman, Yrjö Sakari Yrjö-Koskinen, and Johan Richard Danielson-Kalmari were its ideological leaders. The party's chief organ was the Suometar newspaper, later Uusi Suometar, and its members were sometimes called Suometarians (suomettarelaiset).

Results

13 of 19 female MPs - the first female MPs in the world - elected in 1907. Women in Finnish Parliament (1907).jpg
13 of 19 female MPs – the first female MPs in the world – elected in 1907.

The results of the first parliamentary election in Finnish history were somewhat a surprise for the traditional parties; the Social Democrats emerged as clear winners, winning 80 of the 200 seats, making them the largest faction in Parliament. Of the right-wing or centre-right parties the Finnish Party gained the most seats with 59, followed by the Young Finnish Party with 26 and the Swedish People's Party with 24. The Agrarian League won only nine seats but in the following years its support grew rapidly.

As a result of the election the representatives of workers and the landless people became the largest group in the parliament, whereas previously they had no political representation whatsoever in the legislative body. Women too gained representation; 19 female MPs were elected. They became the first female MPs in the world.

PartyVotes%Seats
Social Democratic Party 329,94637.0380
Finnish Party 243,57327.3459
Young Finnish Party 121,60413.6526
Swedish People's Party 112,26712.6024
Agrarian League 51,2425.759
Christian Workers' Union 13,7901.552
Others18,5682.080
Total890,990100200
Valid votes890,99099.07
Invalid/blank votes8,3570.93
Total votes cast899,347100
Registered voters/turnout1,272,87370.65
Source: Mackie & Rose [1]
Popular vote
SDP
37.03%
SP
27.34%
NSP
13.65%
RKP
12.60%
ML
5.75%
KTL
1.55%
Others
2.08%
Parliament seats
SDP
40.00%
SP
29.50%
NSP
13.00%
RKP
12.00%
ML
4.50%
KTL
1.00%

Aftermath

The joy of the Social Democrats over their victory proved to be short lasting. The second period of attempted Russification in the Grand Duchy of Finland began the following year and the Russian Emperor dissolved the Parliament of Finland on numerous occasions in 1908-1917. During World War I the parliament did not convene for a long time. Thus the Social Democrats were not able to push through most of their desired reforms during these final years of the period of Finland's autonomy, despite being able to keep their position as the largest party in all elections of this period. As a result, many Socialist supporters lost their initially high hopes for the parliament elected by universal suffrage. This in turn was one factor among others in the development which led to the Finnish Civil War in 1918.

The 100th anniversary of the first Finnish Parliament was recently selected as the main motif for a high value commemorative coin, the €2 100th Anniversary of the Finnish Parliamentary commemorative coin, minted in 2006. The obverse shows the silhouette of a woman's and a man's hands, and below the hands ballots being inserted in a ballot-box. On the reverse, two stylized faces in the centre part, one male and the other female, separated by a thin curved line is depicted. They symbolize the equality of genders, as does the fact that the pictorial subjects on both sides are equal in respect to the centre of the coin.

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Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 1 and 2 April 1924. Although the Social Democratic Party remained the largest in Parliament with 60 of the 200 seats, Lauri Ingman of the National Coalition Party formed a centre-right majority government in May 1924. It remained intact until the Agrarians left in November 1924. Voter turnout was 57.4%.

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References

  1. Thomas T Mackie & Richard Rose (1991) The International Almanac of Electoral History, Macmillan, p114 (vote figures)