Finnish parliamentary election, 1917
- SDP: 92
- Otherwise:. 5
- NSP: 24
- RKP: 21
- ML: 26
- SP: 32
The parliamentary election in Finland in 1917 (Finnish Eduskuntavaalit 1917 Swedish Riksdagsvalet 1917) took place on 1 and 2 October 1917. It was the election for the 8th Finnish Parliament.
Russian Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky had before the dissolution of the Finnish Parliament led to carry out elections. It was the last parliamentary elections under Russian rule. Were elected 200 deputies.
Participating parties
There were 7 different parties to choose from:
Election result
The turnout was 69.2 %, and thus 13.7 percentage points higher than the turnout in the parliamentary election in 1916.
The Social Democrats were able to significantly extend their absolute number of votes as in 1916, but declined due to the much higher turnout, the relative share of the vote by which the Social Democrats lost their absolute majority in the Parliament of Finland by 2.5 percentage points. The Finnish Party, the Young Finnish Party and the first and last time in parliamentary elections participating People's Party introduced in all constituencies except in Lapland an electoral alliance.
The big winner of the election was the Agrarian League, which won seven seats and first time to more than the Swedish People's Party was. The Christian Workers' Union lost its single seat
After the election
Pehr Evind Svinhufvud of the Young Finnish Party became the first prime minister of independent Finland. He headed a center-right coalition of young Finnish Party, the Swedish People's Party, Finnish Party and Agrarian League. The Social Democrats declared the election for not legitimate, the Parliament, however, not boycotted. On 4 December 1917 the Svinhufvud government proposed that the Parliament 's independence. The proposal was adopted by the Parliament on 6 December. The Bolshevik government in Russia finally confirmed the independence. After Svinhufvud in May 1918 under the background of the Finnish civil war, which broke out in January, from the conservative, so-called "white" forces, was elected head of state, was Juho Kusti Paasikivi his successor as Prime Minister. After half a year Lauri Ingman replaced with a coalition of the National Coalition Party, the Swedish People's Party and the Progress Party from the PAASIKIVI government. At this time ranged from their 77 seats in the Parliament for the majority, because after the Finnish Civil War, the Social Democrats stayed away from Parliament.
- 2 ) Cabinet PAASIKIVI I - Juho Kusti Paasikivi ( SP) - Government: NSP, RKP, SP, ML (May 27, 1918 to November 27, 1918 )