Parliamentary elections were held in Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 on 21 and 22 September 1975.

Background

Prime Minister Kalevi Sorsa's (Social Democrat) government survived until June 1975. It resigned because of internal disagreements over the ways to combat Finland's recession, which had largely been caused by the 1973 Oil Crisis, as well as the government's increased spending and taxes. The Social Democrats and Centrists also disagreed on the regional policy, that is, the extent to which the national government should re-distribute power and tax revenues to the cities, towns and administrative provinces. President Kekkonen had gradually become dissatisfied with the performance of Prime Minister Sorsa, Finance Minister Virolainen and Foreign Minister Karjalainen: either they were not competent, diligent or courageous enough, or they spent too much time in partisan disputes, or - in Virolainen's case, especially - their foreign policy ability or understanding was not good enough. Although Helsinki, the Finnish capital, was to host the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) at the end of July and at the start of August 1975, Kekkonen did not worry about the possibly negative effect on Finland's international image of having a caretaker government. He appointed it, and chose as Prime Minister Keijo Liinamaa (Social Democrat), who was the state labour disputes mediator. The opposition parties campaigned with varied slogans: the Communists claimed to be loyal supporters of Kekkonen's foreign policy towards the Soviet Union and to be even more faithful defenders of the working class than the Social Democrats, the National Coalitioners promised voters lower taxes and more security, the Ruralists bitterly condemned Kekkonen's allegedly authoritarian presidency, and his "servile" foreign policy towards the Soviet Union, the right-wing Constitutionalists accused Kekkonen of violating the Constitution's spirit by forcing the Parliament to re-elect him as President through an exceptional law in 1973, and the Christian League kept opposing abortion, pornography, the sale of beer in grocery stores, and the public mocking of Christian values. In the end, several parties won one or more seats, because fifteen seats were up for grabs compared to the 1972 election: the Ruralists had then received eighteen seats, now they and their splinter party, the Unity Party, only got a total of three seats. Government formation in the midst of a quickly deepening recession and after an inconclusive election proved very painstaking. Veteran Centrist politician Martti Miettunen finally succeeded, with the help of Kekkonen's strongly-worded televised speech, in forming a centre-left majority "emergency" government in November 1975. It lasted until September 1976, when the Social Democrats and Communists left it. Miettunen then formed a centrist minority government.

Results

Turnout

79.7%

−1.7

party	seats		votes
			proportion		amount
Social Democratic Party of Finland Social Democratic Party of Finland The Social Democratic Party of Finland is one of the three major political parties in Finland, along with the Centre Party and the National Coalition Party. Jutta Urpilainen is the current SDP leader. The party has been in the Finnish government cabinet for long periods and has set many...	54	−1	24.86%	−0.9	683,590	+18,866
Finnish People's Democratic League Finnish People's Democratic League Finnish People's Democratic League was a Finnish political organisation with the aim of uniting those left of the Finnish Social Democratic Party...	40	+3	18.89%	+1.9	519,483	+80,726
National Coalition Party	35	+1	18.37%	+0.8	505,145	+51,711
Centre Party Centre Party (Finland) The Centre Party is a centrist and Nordic agrarian political party in Finland. It is one of the four largest political parties in the country, along with the Social Democratic Party , the National Coalition Party and the True Finns , and currently has 35 seats in the Finnish Parliament...	39	+4	17.63%	+1.2	484,772	+61,733
Swedish People's Party	9	--	4.66%	−0.4	128,211	−2,196
Liberal People's Party Liberals (Finland) Liberals is a free market liberal party in Finland. Founded in 1965 as a reunification of the People's Party of Finland and Liberal League. Originally named Liberal People's Party , it restyled its name as Liberals in 2000....	9	+2	4.35%	−0.8	119,534	−13,421
Finnish Rural Party Finnish Rural Party The Finnish Rural Party was a Finnish populist party. Starting out as a breakaway faction of the Agrarian League in 1959, 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...	2	−16	3.59%	−5.6	98,815	−137,391
Christian League of Finland Christian Democrats (Finland) The Christian Democrats is a Christian democratic political party in Finland. Formerly known as the Finnish Christian League , the Christian Democrats have six seats in the Finnish Parliament and one in the European Parliament.The party was founded in 1958, chiefly from the Christian faction of...	9	+5	3.29%	+0.8	90,599	+25,371
Finnish People's Unity Party	1	–	1.65%	–	45,402	–
Constitutional People's Party	1	–	1.58%	–	43,344	–
Party Organization of Finnish Entrepreneurs			0.42%	–	11,475	–
Åländsk Samling	1	--	0.34%	+0.0	9,482	+1,810
Socialist Workers' Party Socialist Workers Party (Finland) Socialist Workers' Party was a political party in Finland. The STP was founded in 1973 as split from Social Democratic Union of Workers and Smallholders...			0.34%	–	9,457	–
Others (one candidate)			0.02%	–	509	–
Total	200	--	100%		2,749,818	+171,869
Source: Tilastokeskus 2004 & 1975