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 18 and 18 March 1979.

Background

Prime Minister Miettunen's centrist minority government had resigned in May 1977. After a two-year break, Social Democrat Kalevi Sorsa returned to office as Prime Minister. He formed a centre-left majority government, which stimulated the economy by deficit spending, tax cuts to businesses and some public works projects. The economy started to grow again in 1978, after a two-year recession. Unemployment peaked at 8.5 per cent (about 200,000 unemployed) in 1978. Inflation remained high. The National Coalitioners conducted a vigorous election campaign, demanding to be allowed to re-join the government after thirteen years in the opposition. They reaped the benefits of this campaign, and of the usual decrease of long-time governing parties' support, by picking up twelve seats and becoming the second-largest party. Their leader, Harri Holkeri, negotiated with the various parliamentary parties and concluded in April 1979 that no stable majority centre-right government could be formed, because the traditional bourgeois parties (Centrists, National Coalitioners, Swedish People's and Liberals) considered the Christian League and Ruralists too ideologically extreme or old-fashioned to become reliable coalition partners. Holkeri did not want to become the former of government after that. Sorsa refused to continue to serve as Prime Minister, due to the unpopularity that he had suffered amid the recession's lingering effects, his role in the establishment of the soon-to-be-bankrupt television cathode-ray tube factory Valco, his alleged belittling of family violence in a television interview, and his health problems (back pain). Trade and Industry Minister, Mrs. Pirkko Työläjärvi, refused President Kekkonen's offer to become Prime Minister, because she claimed to be unprepared for such a large task. Kekkonen finally turned to Governor of the Bank of Finland, Mauno Koivisto (Social Democrat), who managed to form a centre-left majority government in late May 1979. The veteran Centrist politician Johannes Virolainen claimed in his memoirs that Kekkonen had appointed Koivisto as Prime Minister on the advice of former Prime Minister Miettunen, who claimed that the Finnish people would then see that Koivisto was not as intelligent as they had believed him to be. Kekkonen's official biographer, historian Juhani Suomi, disagreed, and claimed that Koivisto was Kekkonen's last remaining choice as Prime Minister - unless Kekkonen had intended to appoint a caretaker government. Koivisto's second - and final - government would last, despite frequent internal disagreements (their background was Kekkonen's imminent resignation as President and Koivisto's supreme popularity as his successor), until February 1982.

Results

Turnout	81.2%	+1.5

efefef	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...	52	−2	23.89%	−1.0	691,512	+7,922
National Coalition Party National Coalition Party (Finland) The National Coalition Party is a liberal conservative political party in Finland founded in 1918.The National Coalition Party is one of the four largest parties in Finland, along with the Social Democratic Party, the Centre Party and the True Finns...	47	+12	21.65%	+3.3	626,764	+121,619
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...	35	−5	17.90%	−1.0	518,045	−1,438
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...	36	−3	17.29%	−0.3	500,478	+15,706
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	--	4.77%	+1.5	138,244	+47,645
Rural Party of Finland	7	+5	4.58%	+1.0	132,457	+33,642
Swedish People's Party	9	--	4.23%	−0.4	122,418	−5,793
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....	4	−5	3.68%	−0.7	106,560	−12,974
Constitutional People's Party		−1	1.21%	−0.4	34,958	−8,386
Finnish People's Unity Party		−1	0.32%	−1.3	9,316	−36,086
Åländsk Samling	1	--	0.32%	−0.0	9,286	−196
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...			0.10%	−0.2	2,955	−6,502
Party Organization of Finnish Entrepreneurs			0.04%	−0.4	1,233	−10,242
Others			0.01%	−0.0	220	−289
Total	200	--	100%		2,894,446	+144,628
Source: Tilastokeskus 2004