1978 Finnish presidential election

← 1968

15–16 January 1978

1982 →


Candidate	Urho Kekkonen	Raino Westerholm
Party	Centre	Christian League
Electoral vote	259	25
Popular vote	2,017,631	215,244

		CPP
Candidate	Veikko Vennamo	Ahti M. Salonen
Party	Rural Party	Constitutional People's Party
Electoral vote	10	6
Popular vote	114,488	82,478

President before election

Urho Kekkonen
Centre

Elected President

Urho Kekkonen
Centre

Politics of Finland


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v t e

Two-stage presidential elections were held in Finland in 1978, the first since 1968 after Urho Kekkonen's term was extended by four years by Parliament.^[1] The public elected presidential electors to an electoral college on 15 and 16 January.^[2] They in turn elected the President. The result was a victory for Urho Kekkonen, who won on the first ballot.^[1] The turnout for the popular vote was 64.3.^[3] Kekkonen had in the spring of 1975 agreed to become the Social Democratic presidential candidate, and after that all the major Finnish political parties chose him as their candidate. Kekkonen's opponents, such as the Christian League's presidential candidate Raino Westerholm, claimed that Kekkonen's long presidency weakened the Finnish democracy. Over one-third of the Finnish voters abstained from voting, partly as a protest against Kekkonen's expected landslide victory.

The 77-year-old President Kekkonen's health was already declining, although this fact was not easily noticeable in his public appearances.^[4]^[5]^[6]

Results

Popular vote


Party or alliance				Votes	%	Seats
	Supporters of Urho Kekkonen		Social Democratic Party	569,154	23.25	74
			Centre Party	475,372	19.42	64
			Finnish People's Democratic League	445,098	18.18	56
			National Coalition Party	360,310	14.72	45
			Swedish People's Party	88,054	3.60	12
			Liberals	71,232	2.91	8
			Åland Coalition	5,331	0.22	1
			Socialist Workers Party	2,187	0.09	0
			Private Entrepreneurs' Party	893	0.04	0
		Total		2,017,631	82.41	260
	Finnish Christian League			215,244	8.79	24
	Finnish Rural Party			114,488	4.68	10
	Constitutional People's Party			82,478	3.37	6
	Finnish People's Unity Party			18,543	0.76	0
Total				2,448,384	100.00	300

Valid votes				2,448,384	99.11
Invalid/blank votes				21,955	0.89
Total votes				2,470,339	100.00
Registered voters/turnout				3,844,279	64.26
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

Electoral college


Candidate		Party	Votes	%
	Urho Kekkonen	Centre Party	259	86.33
	Raino Westerholm	Finnish Christian League	25	8.33
	Veikko Vennamo	Finnish Rural Party	10	3.33
	Ahti M. Salonen	Constitutional People's Party	6	2.00
Total			300	100.00

Source: Nohlen & Stöver

References

^ ^a ^b Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p630 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
^ Nohlen & Stöver, p606
^ Nohlen & Stöver, p624
^ Timo Vihavainen (2003) "The Welfare Finland" (Hyvinvointi-Suomi), pp883–884 in Seppo Zetterberg et al., eds., A Small Giant of the Finnish History, WSOY
^ Pentti Virrankoski (2009) A History of Finland, Finnish Literature Society, p963
^ Aarno Laitinen et al., eds. (1981) Tamminiemi's Inheritance Dividers, Journalists Ltd

v t e Elections and referendums in Finland
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Elections in brackets were not public elections