Parliamentary elections were held in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

on 6 and 7 July 1958. Nohlen, D & Stöver, P (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p606 The communist

Finnish People's Democratic League Finnish People's Democratic League ( fi, Suomen Kansan Demokraattinen Liitto, SKDL; sv, Demokratiska Förbundet för Finlands Folk, DFFF) was a Finnish political organisation with the aim of uniting those left of the Finnish Social Democratic P ...

emerged as the largest party, but was unable to form a government.

Background

Between March 1956, when

Urho Kekkonen Urho Kaleva Kekkonen (; 3 September 1900 – 31 August 1986), 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 ...

( Agrarian League) became President, and the 1958 elections, Finland had had four governments;

Karl-August Fagerholm Karl-August Fagerholm (31 December 1901, in Siuntio – 22 May 1984, in Helsinki) was Speaker of Parliament and three times Prime Minister of Finland (1948–50, 1956–57, and 1958–59). Fagerholm became one of the leading politicia ...

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Fo ...

majority government,

V. J. Sukselainen Vieno Johannes (V.J.) "Jussi" Sukselainen (12 October 1906 – 6 April 1995; surname until 1928 ''Saari''), was twice Prime Minister of Finland and four times Speaker of the Parliament. He was President of the Nordic Council in 1972 and 1977. ...

's Agrarian minority government, and two civil-service caretaker governments, led by the Governor of the Bank of Finland,

Rainer von Fieandt Berndt Rainer von Fieandt (26 December 1890 – 28 April 1972) was a Finnish banker and official without party affiliation. He was appointed as the Governor of the Bank of Finland in 1955 before being appointed by the President to form a cabinet ...

and the Chief Justice of Finland's Supreme Administrative Court,

Reino Kuuskoski Reino Iisakki Kuuskoski (18 January 1907 – 27 January 1965) was a Finnish jurist, born in Loimaa. Kuuskoski was a member of the Agrarian League. He performed ministerial duties in Finland on two occasions. His first ministerial appointment wa ...

. The Social Democrats and Agrarians found it difficult to work together in the government, which significantly reduced Finland's chances of having a stable government, because the two other large or fairly large parties, the

and

National Coalition Party sv, Samlingspartiet , leader1_title = Chairman , leader1_name = Petteri Orpo , leader2_title = Deputy chairs , leader2_name = Antti Häkkänen Elina ValtonenAnna-Kaisa Ikonen , merger = Finnish Party, Young Finnis ...

, were excluded from the government. The Social Democrats had been split into two parties since

Väinö Tanner Väinö Alfred Tanner (; 12 March 1881 – 19 April 1966; surname until 1895 ''Thomasson'') 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 ...

, a veteran Social Democrat and a former political prisoner (one of the eight "war culprits" after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

), had very narrowly been elected the Social Democratic leader over Fagerholm in July 1957. The Social Democrats were among Kekkonen's chief opponents and wanted to defeat him in the 1962 presidential elections. After becoming President, Kekkonen wanted to defeat the Social Democrats politically, and thus their split into the majority and the minority, the so-called Skogists (after former Defence Minister

Emil Skog Emil Albert Skog (30 June 1897, Helsingin maalaiskunta – 20 September 1981, Helsinki) was a Finnish telephone worker, civil servant and politician. During the Finnish Civil War, Skog fought at the Battle of Tampere as an artilleryman on the Red ...

) helped him move closer towards that goal. In addition, Finland was suffering from a recession and, by that time's standards, a high unemployment rate, which helped the Finnish People's Democratic League to increase their support. After these elections, Fagerholm formed his third government, which included the Social Democrats, Agrarians, National Coalitioners,

Swedish People's Party The Swedish People's Party of Finland ( sv, Svenska folkpartiet i Finland (SFP); fi, Suomen ruotsalainen kansanpuolue (RKP)) is a political party in Finland aiming to represent the interests of the minority Swedish-speaking population of Finlan ...

and the People's Party of Finland, in August 1958. Already when he appointed Fagerholm's government, President Kekkonen indicated that he would not help if it encountered problems. Soon the government ran into difficulties: the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

interrupted its trade negotiations with Finland, and in November or December 1958, the Soviet ambassador to Finland returned to the Soviet Union. These "night frosts," along with President Kekkonen's and the other Agrarians' opposition (Foreign Minister Virolainen resigned from the government at the beginning of December 1958, and former Assistant Finance Minister Karjalainen wrote that it was time for the wise people to leave the government), caused Fagerholm to tender his resignation in December 1958. Sukselainen formed another centrist minority government in January 1959, while Kekkonen visited the Soviet Union where the Soviet leader Khrushchev assured him that all was again well in the Finnish-Soviet relations.Johannes Virolainen (1991) ''The Last Electoral Term'', Otava

Results

References

{{Finnish elections General elections in Finland

Parliamentary A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democracy, democratic government, governance of a sovereign state, state (or subordinate entity) where the Executive (government), executive derives its democratic legitimacy ...

Election and referendum articles with incomplete results