1. The Opposition's Victory and Non-Victory

As in 1970, Finland's governing coalition both lost and did not lose in the parliamentary election of March 18-19,1979. Finland had three coalition governments between the election of September 21-22, 1975, and that of March, 1979. On November 30, 1975, the non-party government of Keijo Liinamaa was succeeded by the 'national emergency government' of Martti Miettunen, supported by a broad coalition of 152 members of the Eduskunta. The political left, SDP and SKDL, stepped out ten months later, and Miettunen formed a minority government of the three centrist parties (Centre, Liberals, and Swedish People's Party) on September 29, 1976, covering 58 of the 200 Eduskunta members. On May 15, 1977, Kalevi Sorsa became the prime minister of another coalition of the five parties with 152 seats. Its parliamentary base was narrowed to 142 seats when the SPP deserted the coalition, and broadened to 143 seats when the only Unity Party member joined the Centre Party.

The Sorsa Government was often called the ' Sorsa-Virolainen' government because of the very central political position of the two party leaders, the SDP chairman Kalevi Sorsa (since 1975) and the Centre Party chairman Johannes Virolainen (since 1965). The latter was the deputy prime minister and both had been prime ministers before, Virolainen in 1964-66, and Sorsa in 1972-1975. The coalition's political composition is often called the 'popular front' model which refers to cooperation between the communists, the social democrats, and the agrarians. This indeed became the typical base of Finnish governments when the leftist election victory of 1966 brought the communists to the government after 18 years in continuous opposition and the SDP back after an absence of seven years. The model persisted through the non-socialist majorities of the 1970's (see Table 1).

The election of 1979 caused some embarrassment for each partner of the fourparty coalition. Together the government parties lost 16 seats. The victory went again to the winners of 1970, the conservative National Coalition and the 'populist' Finnish Rural Party. In 1970 the conservatives had established themselves as one of Finland's four 'large' parties (large meaning here a party which controls at least x/6x/6 of the seats and thus has a certain leverage if constitutional amendments are on the parliamentary agenda). For the first time in their history the conservatives received in 1979 over 20 per cent of the votes, and for the second time they gained

over 40 seats in the Eduskunta (42 seats in 1930). The Rural Party made an
unexpected come-back and enlarged its group from two to seven seats.

The conservatives did their best to become 'ministrable' partners in a majority government, and indeed there was considerable popular demand during the campaign to change the ruling coalition. However, one of two conditions would have been necessary. Either the social democrats should have agreed to cooperate with the conservatives, which they did not do, or the coalition of 1962-66, consisting of four non-socialist parties (Centre, LPP, SPP, and the Conservatives), should have gained a majority. Because of the birth of new small parties these non-socialists of long standing were eight seats short of a majority in 1975 and now they won 97 seats, still four short of a majority. A government coalition of all the non-socialist parties was out of the question because the Rural Party and the Christian League had committed the political sin of opposing President Urho Kekkonen's re-election in 1978.

Ten weeks of coalition formation led to the paradoxical but expected result: the electoral losers carried on. Only the liberals stepped aside and the SPP moved back in. Prime Minister Mauno Koivisto's government was appointed on May 26, 1979. It consists of five social democrats, including the prime minister, three communists/people's democrats, six ministers of the Centre Party, and two from the Swedish People's Party. If one groups the 17th minister, the non-party expert Esko Rekola with the non-socialist parties, then the non-socialists have a 9-8 majority. The coalition still has a considerable majority in the parliament; it is supported by 133 members of Eduskunta. From this base, as well as from the base of the previous government, one should deduct those communists who oppose their party's participation in the government and who tend to vote against their own government. The conservatives also failed to secure the position of the Speaker of the Eduskunta: the Centre Party's Ahti Pekkala was elected to that post.

2. The Campaign

Increasing unemployment was the 'national emergency' which helped President Kekkonen to whip the five parties into a coalition cabinet in November, 1975. The average unemployment rate of 1975 was two per cent of the labour force. The threatening problem was not solved: in 1978 the unemployment rate was fourfold, just under eight per cent. Recession touched Finland rather late but quite severely. Economic growth was almost nil during 1975-1977, until the total volume of production showed a modest increase of 2.5 per cent in 1978. Inflation, 18 per cent in 1975, was cut down to 7 pet cent in 1978, but the severity of the medicine was revealed by unemployment and by the number of bankruptcies. To a large extent these were due to the high taxation necessary to finance the decisions of the unduly optimistic years of the early 1970'5.

In this situation the tone of the campaign seemed more realistic than that of many previous ones. Promises were not overwhelming; there was a common understanding of the importance of a revived economy and better employment opportunities; private enterprise won new friends and some earlier talk about socialism was swept under the rug. The parties attempted to create a new national optimism and self-confidence. On the other hand, concrete ideas on how unemployment should be handled were very rare, and even more generally, the campaign debate offered very few concrete suggestions for the new legislature.

The leading government party, SDP, and the leading opposition party, the conservatives, occupied the most central roles in the stage. They also directed most of their ammunition at each other. The communists suggested a 'historic compromise' between the left and the non-socialists, something that the social democrats said had been accomplished in Finland already in the 1930'5. The Centre Party, once again, praised its foreign political capabilities, and the liberals made a belated attempt to direct their appeal to the middle class.

The government partners provided some cooperation and mutual assistance to the SDP in its defence against the campaign attacks of the leading opposition party. The chairman of the Swedish People's Party joined the defence as well: in a TV programme and in the press he announced his support for the economic policies, even though he claimed that the base of the cabinet coalition ought to be changed. Thus the campaign which seemed at first to be a dual fight of the SDP and the conservatives became a fight of between the government and the opposition. Gradually the small non-socialist protest parties were somewhat forgotten.

The SDP promised 'a new rise for Finland' and the conservatives presented themselves as the 'constructive alternative', unwilling to enter any government the goals of which would be defined by others. The Centre Party promised to work for a comprehensive tax reform and the SKDL/Communist Party discussed many basic issues of the economy and presented the 'historic compromise' of the party. The Liberals listed various target groups: the middle class, families with young children, and private entrepreneurs, without committing themselves to any one government coalition. The Christian League stressed moral values and the PKP warned white Finland against the dangers of communism. The SMP made it very explicit who its main candidate was in each constituency: the election system forced the small parties into election alliances and the SMP did not want to risk its representation in the new Eduskunta.

Because the previous parliament had not been dissolved, the political parties

had sufficient time to plan the campaign properly. The large parties published their platforms during the late autumn of 1978, and most candidates were nominated early. The election law now makes membership primaries mandatory, but in several constituencies the non-socialist parties avoided these as their party units did not present more names than the number of candidatures available.

The Finnish Broadcasting Corporation both provided and limited campaign information. During the three months preceding the election, parliamentary candidates were denied access to all programmes - a sure way to cut down normal political reporting. On the other hand, the actual campaign programmes on television included a comprehensive series of 12 interview programmes (those of the representatives of each party) between February 12,and March 9. The smallest party started and the largest one ended these programmes. The 'Big Election Debate' took place on March 15. Moreover, the radio broadcast both national and regional debates and Swedish language programmes. In accordance with the strict interpretation of the Party Law by the Chancellor of Justice, equal time had to be provided for each party regardless of its size. When 12 parties of very different significance are treated equally, interesting debates become virtually impossible.

There was simply no way at all to allow the two main gladiators, the SDP and the Coalition, to confront each other face to face. The size of the audiences was guaranteed by good timing of the interview programmes; the range was between 1.5 and 2.0 million (the two exceptions being the Christian high of 2.15 million and the SYP low of 1.38 million). Television's Network One opened the 'Big Debate' with 1.7 million but closed it with only 1.1 million viewers.

The sharpest exchange of words probably concerned some cases of actual or supposed corruption. However, the mood of the campaign tended to avoid extreme statements and limitless promises. On the other hand, the 1979 campaign did not reach down to the common man and possibly it seemed boring and unappealing. The economic situation may have kept a rather large segment of potential young leftists away from the polls. The somewhat confusing and Unstructured themes and the distant tone of the campaign debate may have benefited small protest parties.

3. The Electorate

Two elections had measured the mood of the electorate between 1975 and 1979, and public opinion polls began to show consistent findings about the probable outcome of the 1979 election (Table 2). National aggregates of the local elections in October, 1976, indicated an unprecedented popularity of the conservatives. The political left had lost a little and the decline of the Rural Party continued, while its opposition, the SKYP, fared even worse. The presidential election took place on January 15-16, 1978. The electoral college was elected under rather peculiar circumstances, as all the four large parties and the two established people's parties nominated the same presidential candidate, the incumbent Dr. Urho Kekkonen. Thus the real issue was 'whose Kekkonen was most beautiful'. The anti-Kekkonen vote went primarily to the Christian League (candidate Raimo Westerholm); the Rural Party (Veikko Vennamo) ranked second, the Constitutional People's Party (Georg C. Ehrnrooth) was third, while the Unity Party SKYP (Eino Haikala) received too little support to win a single seat in the electoral college.

The Conservatives suffered a severe loss of support in the presidential election

of 1978, because in 1968 they had run with a fairly successful anti-Kekkonen candidate and all the supporters of the party did not obey their party leadership in 1978. With only one year remaining to the parliamentary election, two crucial questions emerged: did the conservatives alienate permanently some of their 1976 supporters, and did the presidential showing of the SKL, SMP, and PKP bring new constant support to these small protest parties?

Opinion polls indicated very soon that the winners of 1978 had only 'borrowed' conservative voters. The National Coalition was quite soon back to the 20 per cent mark. The increased Christian support began to fade away and that of the three other small protest parties seemed to wither away even faster. It has been customary in Finland for the socialist block to win fewer votes in presidential elections than in parliamentary elections. Gradually during the course of 1978 the support of the left approached the level it had enjoyed in 1975 (but still quite far from the record high 51.0 per cent of 1966). Because of President Kekkonen's agrarian background his former party, the Centre Party, received some 'extra' votes in 1978. It seems, however, that the support for the Centre stabilized higher in 1978 than it had been in 1975 (see Table 2).

Opinion polls predicted the rather low vote for the socialist parties and the election victory of the conservatives. Actually the anticipation of such a result shadowed much of the campaign debate. What the polls did not capture was the rise of the Rural Party (SMP) vote back to the level of the 1978 presidential election. Either something went wrong with Finnish polling in this respect or, possibly, actual last minute conversion and mobilization took place amongst the typically alienated potential support of the Rural Party. A comparison of the latest pre-election polls with the actual vote distribution would seem to suggest that the Rural Party drew support from the Centre Party and from the Communists; another guess would be the last minute decision of some liberals to vote for the Christians. What follows below is an attempt to test such suppositions with convenient aggregate methods that could well be called 'instant analysis'.

4. The Give and Take of the Political Parties

A comparison of the national vote distributions in 1975 and 1979 suggests a 'volatility index' of 5.8, as the total net gain of the National Coalition, the Christian League, and the Rural Party was 5.8 percentage points while the nine other parties lost the same total of percentage points. In many countries this volatility might not be considered at all high, and it ranks below Finland's total gains of 1975 (9.5%) when several small parties performed for the first time. Figure 1 shows the net change for each of the 12 parties. It also lists the difference of the 80.8 per cent turnout in 1979 and the exceptionally low 79.7 per cent in 1975.

The main purpose of the figure, however, is to report on a correlation coefficient analysis of the changes in party vote. The data were gathered and computerized within the semi-official reporting organization of the Finnish broadcasting Corporation, the Ministery of Justice, and the Finnish News Agency. They were used in the election night TV and radio programmes but this and subsequent analysis were not performed then. There is no technical reason why these analyses could not have been reported only four hours after the polls were closed. Due to the methodology they can be named an 'instant analysis' of election results. The unit of analysis is either the commune (n = 360) or, in the 16 largest cities, the voting district.

We are quite aware of the dangers of the 'ecological fallacy'. Even the directions of change which Figure 1 reveals represent only net flows of change and are not based on information about individual voters. That should be kept in mind when reading the following summary of the correlation analysis and its subsequent steps.

It seems probable that the Social Democratic Party received some votes from the People's Democratic League and from the Unity Party. But it also seems that the SDP lost some votes to the Christian League (within some constituencies also to the Rural Party and the Liberal Party, and within many southern constituencies directly to the National Coalition). Moreover, some Social Democrats might have abstained. Nor did the SDP have the essential political connections with the young voters who had the suffrage for the first time.

The People's Democratic League (SKDL) tended to face similar political problems. It might have lost some marginal votes to the Rural Party and some other minor protest parties. And some people within the SKDL did not vote at all. The Centre Party lost to the National Coalition, typically within the rural areas of

maximum Centre support. Also the Liberal People's Party and the Swedish
People's Party might have lost in favor for the conservatives.

The possible changes of marginal votes from the major left-wing parties or even from the governmental parties to the conservatives tended to raise the political support of the National Coalition as well as that of the minor protest parties, the Rural Party and the Christian League. The most significant increase in political support was that of the National Coalition. The conservatives also succeeded in regaining some votes from the Rural Party, from the Constitutional Party and from the Christian League, which they had lost in the presidential election in 1978.

The Christian League succeeded in increasing its vote by 1.5 percentage points.
The marginal votes for the Christians probably came from the SDP, the Private
Entrepreneurs' (SYP), the Rural Party, the Swedish People's Party and from the

Socialist Workers' Party (STP). But the Christians seem to have lost some votes to
the National Coalition, and the political support for the Christians was stronger in
those areas where the voting turnout remained low.

The increased Rural Party (SMP) support tended to come from the SKDL and the Unity Party (SKYP) but even the Social Democrats lost votes to the SMP in many constituencies. The SMP also received some votes from the Liberal Party and the Centre Party, but lost significantly to the National Coalition or the Christian League. Within some constituencies the SMP could raise its political support by mobilizing a higher turnout, and in some cases it might have attracted support from the young voters and from the immigrants in southern Finland or in Sweden.

The National Coalition won 3.2 percentage points. Most gains tended to come from the Centre Party, but also from the SYP, the SKYP, the SMP, the Liberal Party, the Christians and from the Constitutional Party (PKP). Within several constituencies the conservatives also gained votes from young people, and in most cases a high turnout helped them.

The Liberals received some votes from the Unity Party, but lost more than that to the National Coalition and the Swedish People's Party. The SPP, in turn, received few votes from the Liberals and the Unity Party, but it also lost to the Christians, the Coalition or the PKP.

The Constitutional Party PKP might have won some votes from the young
generation, as well as from the Swedish People's Party, but it lost support to the
National Coalition.

The collapsing Private Entrepreneur's Party (SYP) received some votes from the SKYP, but lost more than that to the Conservatives or to the Christians. It also seems evident that neither the SKYP nor the STP have a promising future. The SKYP lost most votes to the Rural Party, the Liberals, the Coalition, the SDP or the Centre Party. And the STP tended to lose to the SKDL, the SDP, or the Christians.

5. The Dimensions of Change

The next logical step after correlating the changes in party votes seems to be a factor analysis which may offer a more general idea of what dynamics were 'in the air' in the 1979 elections. Table 3 shov/s the results of the analysis which produced six factors. The following patterns of change from 1975 to 1979 can be identified:

(1) The first category of change led from agrarianism to conservatism: The Centre Party declined and the conservatives won. The loss of the Private Enterprise Party and - perhaps surprisingly - a good showing by the Social Democrats also had weaker loadings on this dimension of change. It occurred in the well-to-do rural areas, the stronghold of the Centre Party.

(2) Next appears the Christian/communist dimension. The rise of the SKL was related to the lessening of communist support (via SDP) and the decline in voting turnout. Furthermore, the liberal support and the SDP decline had loadings worth mentioning. This dimension was typical of certain middle-sized urban areas as well as some industrialized rural areas.

(3) The losses of the SDP characterize the third dimension. The constitutionalists
suffered as well, while the luck of the Swedish People's Party added

some flavour to this dimension of change. It occurred within the support area of the
Social Democrats, also containing middle sized urban areas and certain industrialized
rural areas.

(4) Political protest comes next. The rise of the Rural Party, SMP, was coincidental
with the support of two 'miniparties', the SYP and the STP. The SMP vote
increased typically in many rural communes and also in certain country towns.

(5) The fall of the Unity Party, SKYP, is the lonely determinant of the fifth dimension. The SKYP was founded in 1973 and can hardly survive after this blow. Small or middle sized urban areas and industrial or agricultural rural areas provided the setting.

(6) The sixth factor is defined by an unstable population - both internal migration
and migration to Sweden. Ils political aspect was a declining turnout.

The three primary ones among the six factors of change were almost as meaningful. Their cumulative explanatory per cent is 37.0 per cent. All six factors explain 61.3 per cent of Finland's four-year change in the vote. The above references to the characteristic commune types were based on an overview of the factor scores which were computed for each commune in the analysis.

In the 'instant analysis' of election night it would have been equally possible to go yet one step further and to attempt some non-political explanations of political change. In this case the 'process produced' data file of the election night was later complemented with commune level aggregate data on the size of the commune and on the distribution of age, education, sex and economic activity among its inhabitants

as well as its family size, housing and migration, and the level of development of the commune ('municipal capacity) and the degree of municipal services it provides. Data on unemployment and financial support from the public sector were available only at the constituency level.

Table 4 summarizes the results of the multiple regression analysis. It suggests
the following reasons why each of the six dimensions of change took place in
Finland:

(1) The Centre Party losses occurred among the agricultural population. Women were loyal, but active males preferred the conservatives. Financial allocations from the state to the private sector strengthened the Centre Party, but unemployment favoured the conservatives.

(2) The rise of the Christian League and the related communist decline may have also occurred most within the primary sector of the economy, but not where state support was allocated to the private sector. Large families provided a fertile ground.

(3) The decline of the Social Democrats was related to unemployment and to the immature status of social services in new urban areas. The SDP lost support from active people with low income but hardly from retired people, and the female voters tended to support the SDP.

(4) The dimension of political protest and the rise of the SMP was very strongly related to unemployment. It was also the outcome of migration, developing social services in newly urbanized areas, and the state's financial support to the public sector. Obviously protest rose where the government had failed.

(5) The Unity Party lost where high education is common and population density
is above average.

(6) Migration and the size of the commune provide some explanation for the unstability/inactivity dimension. Many new inhabitants of the urban areas have no social roots there, and in the old rural places it is perhaps mainly elderly people who remain. The municipal services are not well developed where this instability was most apparent.

6. The New Eduskunta

1,370 candidates had been nominated and 200 were elected. Of the members of the preceding Eduskunta, 183 ran again and 135 were re-elected. The renewal rate of about 1/3 can be considered normal in Finnish elections. Because Finnish parties are unable to arrange their candidates on lists like the parties in most PR systems (the voters do the rank ordering), some leading politicians are often among the losers. This time the most publicised loser was Taisto Sinisalo, the vice-chairman of the Communist Party and the leader of its hard-core internal opposition. The Christian party chairman Raimo Westerholm was not reelected either. The conservatives were handicapped during the campaign by the fact that their chairman Harri Holkeri was no longer a candidate, and presumably would also resign his party leadership post (indeed, new chairmen were elected in June, 1979, for both the conservatives and the SKDL, because Holkeri and Ele Alenius left their party posts upon appointment to directorships in the Bank of Finland and, furthermore, in August Pekka Vennamo, M.P., inherited the SMP chairmanship from his father Veikko Vennamo, M.P.).

The relationship of the internal party wings is most interesting within the communist movement. The representation of the SKDL became lower than ever. Among the 35 members, six do not belong to the Communist Party (four in 1975). The Communist majority leader Aarne Saarinen strenghened his position while the failure of the opposition leaders, Taisto Sinisalo and Markus Kainulainen, to gain re-election symbolizes the weakening support of the most extreme communist wing - its new leader in the Eduskunta will probably be the Marxist sociologist Seppo Toiviainen.

The moderate supporters of party leadership strengthened their position in the conservative National Coalition, and close allies of chairman Kalevi Sorsa increased also in the SDP group. The most visible new leader of the right wing of the SDP is the former national trade union leader Niilo Hämäläinen. On the other hand, in the parliamentary Centre Party the chairman of the membership party, Johannes Virolainen, seems to have a weakened position and his party 'line is now outnumbered by the 'K-line' of the party by about 24 to 12.

The large number of woman legislators has for a long time been an exceptional feature of membership of the Finnish Eduskunta (46 in 1975). Now the number was a record high, 52 (or 26 per cent). Of them, 27 belong to the socialist and 25 to the non-socialist parties. It was particularly feared before the election that the youngest age groups would not vote in high enough numbers - this was obvious in 1975, the first time with 18 year old voters - and even a non-party campaign was conducted to mobilise the youngest electors. It may have been successful and the national turnout became higher than in 1975. The youngest new member of the Eduskunta is 23 years old.

Finns who have emigrated abroad have the right to vote in Finland as long as they keep their Finnish citizenship. Only 6.5 per cent voted, although the government invested a great deal in the mobilization and the administration of their vote. Having gained their right these Finns are not likely either to use or to lose it.

Certain other reforms of the election system have been discussed, but all preparatory commission work was postponed until after the election. For example, campaign finance will be reconsidered and some research was conducted by the authorities on the cost of individual campaigns. It was discovered that those

candidates who spent the most upon their personal advertising were not elected. Some daily newspapers would like to have the polls closed before 8 p.m. on the second election day, and their motives are obvious. The big issues of increasing proportionality and eventual vote thresholds remain to be debated later.

The new Eduskunta convened on April 4. Ahti Pekkala of the Centre Party was elected as Speaker (when he became the Minister of Finance in May, he was replaced by Johannes Virolainen). Veikko Helle (SDP) and Juuso Häikiö (Cons.) became the Vice-Speakers. Pekkala's election was aided by SDP support and that aid was returned by the Centre when committee chairmanships were filled. Committees with non-socialist chairmen have now a non-socialist majority of 9 to 8 and those with a leftist chairman have a non-socialist majority of 10 to 7. The Finance Committee has a 12-9 non-socialist majority.

When President Urho Kekkonen opened the first session of the parliament on April 6th, he asked for a careful consideration of what additional expenses the state can bear. The Eduskunta recessed on June 19. Up to then it had not done much, and repairs to the parliament building allowed a long summer vacation with good conscience. However, dark clouds are indeed gathering on the economic horizon. The first campaign promise which the government firmly broke concerned the taxation of automobiles - only before the election is every party the car buyer's friend.