Lauri Kristian Relander was the second President of Finland (1925–1931). A prominent member of the Agrarian League, he served as a member of Parliament, and as Speaker, before his election as President.
Parliamentary elections were held in Finland between 1 and 3 July 1922. The Social Democratic Party remained the largest in Parliament with 53 of the 200 seats. The caretaker government of Professor Aimo Cajander (Progressive), that President Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg had appointed in June 1922, following the resignation of Prime Minister Juho Vennola (Progressive), remained in office until Kyösti Kallio formed an Agrarian-Progressive minority government in November 1922. Voter turnout was 58.5%.
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%.
Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 1 and 2 July 1927. Although the Social Democratic Party remained the largest in Parliament with 60 of the 200 seats, Juho Sunila of the Agrarian League formed an Agrarian minority government in December 1927. It remained intact until December 1928. Voter turnout was 55.8%.
Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 1 and 2 October 1930. The Social Democratic Party emerged as the largest in Parliament with 66 of the 200 seats. Voter turnout was 65.9%.
Parliamentary elections were held in Finland between 1 and 3 July 1933. The Social Democratic Party remained the largest party in Parliament with 78 of the 200 seats. However, Prime Minister Toivo Mikael Kivimäki of the National Progressive Party continued in office after the elections, supported by Pehr Evind Svinhufvud and quietly by most Agrarians and Social Democrats. They considered Kivimäki's right-wing government a lesser evil than political instability or an attempt by the radical right to gain power. Voter turnout was 62.2%.
Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 1 and 2 July 1936. Following the election Prime Minister Toivo Mikael Kivimäki of the National Progressive Party was defeated in a confidence vote in September 1936 and resigned in October. Kyösti Kallio of the Agrarian League formed a centrist minority government after Pehr Evind Svinhufvud refused to allow the Social Democrats to join the government. After Svinhufvud's defeat in the February 1937 presidential election, Kallio took office as the new President in March 1937, and he allowed the Social Democrats, Agrarians and Progressives to form the first centre-left or "red soil" Finnish government. Aimo Cajander (Progressive) became Prime Minister, although the real strong men of the government were Finance Minister Väinö Tanner and Defence Minister Juho Niukkanen (Agrarian).
Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 1 and 2 July 1939. Following the elections, the National Progressive Party-led government of Aimo Cajander continued in office. However, he was replaced by Risto Ryti's Progressive-led war government in December 1939.
Parliamentary elections were held in Finland on 1 and 2 July 1948.
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 between 1 and 3 March 1919. The Social Democratic Party emerged as the largest in Parliament with 80 of the 200 seats. Voter turnout was 67.1%.
Indirect presidential elections were held for the first time in Finland in 1919. Although the country had declared Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse King on 9 October 1918, he renounced the throne on 14 December. The President was elected by Parliament, with Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg of the National Progressive Party receiving 71.5% of the 200 votes. Ståhlberg, a moderate, liberal and reformist politician, who favoured improving the material well-being of workers and other economically poor Finns, received the votes of Social Democrats, Agrarians and Progressives. He also firmly supported the new Finnish Republic, and a parliamentary form of government with a strong President as a mediator and a political reserve for politically troubled times. Mannerheim, an independent right-winger and monarchist, suspected the democratic, republican and parliamentary form of government of producing too partisan political leaders, and of working ineffectively during crises. Ståhlberg favoured the signing of peace treaty between Finland and the Soviet Russia, while Mannerheim in the summer of 1919 strongly considered ordering the Finnish army to invade St. Petersburg to help the Russian Whites in that country's civil war. Only the National Coalitioners and Swedish People's Party voted for Mannerheim in this presidential election.
Two-stage presidential elections were held in Finland in 1925. 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 Lauri Kristian Relander, who won on the third ballot. The turnout for the popular vote was just 39.7%. The outgoing President, K.J. Ståhlberg, had refused to seek a second term. According to the late Agrarian and Centrist politician, Johannes Virolainen, he stepped down after one term because he believed that an incumbent President would be too likely to win re-election. President Ståhlberg claimed that he had already completed his political service to Finland as President. Moreover, he wanted to step down because many right-wing Finns opposed him. According to Pentti Virrankoski, a Finnish historian, President Ståhlberg hoped that his retirement would advance parliamentary politics in Finland. Ståhlberg's party, the Progressives, chose Risto Ryti, the Governor of the Bank of Finland, as their presidential candidate. The Agrarians only chose Lauri Kristian Relander as their presidential candidate in early February 1925. The National Coalitioners originally chose former Regent and Prime Minister Pehr Evind Svinhufvud as their presidential candidate, but before the presidential electors met, they replaced Svinhufvud with Hugo Suolahti, an academician working as the Rector (Principal) of the University of Helsinki. Relander surprised many politicians by defeating Ryti as a dark-horse presidential candidate, although he had served as the Speaker of the Finnish Parliament, and as Governor of the Province of Viipuri. Ståhlberg had quietly favoured Ryti as his successor, because he considered Ryti a principled and unselfish politician. He was disappointed with Relander's victory, and told one of his daughters that if he had known beforehand that Relander would be elected as his successor, he would have considered seeking a second term.
Two-stage presidential elections were held in Finland in 1931. 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 Pehr Evind Svinhufvud, who won on the third ballot by just two votes. The turnout for the popular vote was 47.3%. This presidential election was held during an ideologically, politically, socially and economically tense time. The Great Depression was impoverishing many Finnish farmers and workers. The far-right Lapua Movement had not settled for the ban of the Communist Party and its affiliated organizations in the autumn of 1930. It wanted to help elect a President who would also strongly oppose the Social Democrats and moderate bourgeois parties, such as the Progressives. Although Svinhufvud disapproved of the Lapua Movement's violent kidnappings of left-wing politicians and other illegal acts, he was their preferred presidential candidate. Former President K.J. Ståhlberg, a champion of democracy, parliamentarism and the rule of law, had been briefly kidnapped by some activists of the Lapua Movement with his wife in October 1930. He was chosen as the Progressive presidential candidate. Speaker of the Finnish Parliament, Kyösti Kallio, held ideals similar to those of Ståhlberg, and he became the Agrarian presidential candidate. The outgoing President, Lauri Kristian Relander, had lost the Agrarian presidential candidacy to Kallio, because he did not condemn the Lapua Movement as strongly as Kallio did, and a sufficient number of Agrarians believed that Kallio could control the Lapua Movement's extremists more effectively than Relander. Right-wing Finns and some centrists, such as a prominent Agrarian parliamentarian, Juho Niukkanen, were concerned that Ståhlberg's re-election as the Finnish President would escalate political tensions in Finland. The Commander-in-Chief of the Civil Guards, Major General Lauri Malmberg, announced in the Finnish Parliament that he would not guarantee order among the Civil Guards, if Ståhlberg was elected President. Svinhufvud's razor-thin victory required Niukkanen's arm-twisting tactics, whereby he pressured all the Agrarian presidential electors to support Svinhufvud. This 69-year-old and slightly ailing conservative politician was considered by his supporters as a sufficiently bold, solid and patriotic man to re-unite the ideologically divided Finns. His pro-democracy supporters hoped that he could keep both right-wing extremists and left-wing extremists in check.
Two-stage presidential elections were held in Finland in 1937. On 15 and 16 January the public elected presidential electors to an electoral college. They in turn elected the President. Whilst Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg was one vote short of winning on the first ballot, the result was a victory for Kyösti Kallio, who won on the second ballot. The turnout for the popular vote was 57.8%.
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.
Early and indirect presidential elections were held in Finland in 1940 after President Kyösti Kallio resigned on 27 November following a stroke on 27 August. The 1937 electoral college was recalled and elected Prime Minister Risto Ryti, who received 288 of the 300 votes. Most other Finnish politicians considered Ryti a principled, unselfish, intelligent and patriotic man, who could lead Finland effectively enough during World War II. His leadership qualities had been tested already during the Winter War. Also the outgoing President Kallio considered him the best available presidential candidate. In early December 1940, the Soviet Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, interfered with the Finnish presidential elections by claiming to the Finnish Ambassador to the Soviet Union, J.K. Paasikivi, that if potential presidential candidates such as Marshal Mannerheim, former President Svinhufvud or former Prime Minister Kivimäki were elected President, the Soviet government would consider Finland unwilling to fulfill its peace treaty with the Soviet Union. Due to the lingering threat of another war and the Karelian refugees' dispersal throughout Finland, regular presidential elections were cancelled, and instead the 1937 presidential electors were summoned to elect the President. Under these tense political circumstances, Ryti had no problem winning these exceptional presidential elections by a landslide.
Two-stage presidential elections were held in Finland in 1956. 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 Urho Kekkonen, who won on the third ballot over Karl-August Fagerholm. The turnout for the popular vote was 73.4%. Kekkonen had been Juho Kusti Paasikivi's heir apparent since the early 1950s, given his notable political skills for building coalitions, bargaining, risk-taking and adjusting his tactics, actions and rhetoric with regard for the prevailing political wind. On the other hand, his behaviour and political tactics, including sharp-tongued speeches and writings, utilization of political opponents' weaknesses, and rather close relations with the Soviet leaders, were severely criticized by several of his political opponents. Kekkonen's colourful private life, including occasional heavy drinking and at least one extramarital affair, also provided his fierce opponents with verbal and political weapons to attack him. Several other presidential candidates were also criticized for personal issues or failures. Despite all the anti-Kekkonen criticism, his political party, the Agrarians, succeeded for the first time in getting the same share of the vote in the presidential elections' direct stage as in the parliamentary elections. President Paasikivi had neither publicly agreed nor refused to be a presidential candidate. He considered himself morally obliged to serve as President for a couple of more years, if many politicians urged him to do so. Between the first and second ballots of the Electoral College, one National Coalitioner phoned him, asking him to become a dark-horse presidential candidate of the National Coalitioners, Swedish People's Party and People's Party (liberals). At first, Paasikivi declined, requiring the support of Social Democrats and most Agrarians. Then he moderated his position, but mistakenly believed that he would receive enough Social Democratic, Agrarian and Communist and People's Democratic electors' votes to advance to the crucial third ballot. This did not happen, because all Agrarian electors remained loyal to Kekkonen, all Social Democratic electors remained loyal to Fagerholm, and the Communist and People's Democratic electors split their votes to help Fagerholm and Kekkonen advance to the third ballot. The bitterly annoyed and disappointed President Paasikivi publicly denied his last-minute presidential candidacy two days later. Kekkonen was elected President with the narrowest possible majority, 151 votes to 149. For several decades, the question of who cast the decisive vote for him has been debated among Finnish politicians and some Finnish journalists.
