|
Finland The National Coalition Party
The National Coalition Party (Kansallinen
Kokoomuspuolue--
KOK) was founded in November 1918 by members of the Old
Finn
Party and, to a lesser extent, by followers of the Young
Finn
Party. It represented interests desiring a strong state
government that would guarantee law and order and the
furtherance
of commerce. Defeated in its attempt to establish a
monarchal
government, the party formulated a program in 1922 that
clearly
set out its conservative aim of emphasizing stability over
reform. The large farms and businesses in southern Finland
were
the basis of the party's support.
Throughout the interwar period, the party was hostile
to the
rights of the Swedish-speaking minority and sought to
deprive the
Swedish language of its status as one of the country's two
official languages. During the 1930s, it had close
contacts with
the radical right-wing movements that mirrored trends
elsewhere
and for a time posed a threat to Finnish democracy. One of
the
party's leaders, Juho Paasikivi, elected party chairman in
1934,
attempted with some success to move it away from these
extreme
positions. The KOK was opposed to the Red-Earth government
formed
in 1937, but was not strong enough to prevent it. During
the war,
the party was part of the national unity governments.
After the war, the KOK became the most right-wing party
in
Finland, as groups farther right were banned by the
armistice
agreement of 1944 and the SKP was legalized
(see The Cold War and the Treaty of 1948
, ch. 1). Despite Paasikivi's terms as
prime
minister in the first postwar years, his election to the
presidency in 1946, and the role he played in the drafting
of the
Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance
(FCMA--
see Appendix B) as well as in the reorienting of Finnish
foreign
policy, his party was not regarded as an acceptable
coalition
partner for much of the postwar period. Soviet doubts
about the
sincerity of KOK's support for the new direction of
Finnish
foreign policy, the so-called Paasikivi Line, was
sufficient to
keep the KOK, for decades the country's second largest
nonsocialist party, out of government for most of the
postwar
period.
The party also was excluded from governments because it
was
seen by many to be rigidly right-wing, despite party
program
changes in the 1950s that moved it closer to the
conservatism
practiced by its sister parties in larger West European
countries. The party program of 1957 formalized its
support for a
"social market economy" and for the concept of employer
responsibility to wage earners.
In the postwar years, the KOK often allied with the SDP
to
reduce agricultural subsidies, a joint effort that
continued in
the late 1980s. The division between city and country
interests
continued to be a key element in Finnish politics in the
second
half of the 1980s, and it was one reason why the two
principal
nonsocialist parties, the KOK and Kesk, were political
rivals.
An action that increased the enmity between the KOK and
the
Kesk leader, Kekkonen, and contributed to the Note Crisis
was the
formation of the so-called Honka League by the KOK and the
SDP.
The Honka League aimed to stop Kekkonen's reelection in
1962, but
the attempt never had a chance, and it was soon abandoned.
The
KOK continued to be opposed to Kekkonen and to his foreign
policy, however, and it was the only major party to oppose
his
reelection in 1968. Nevertheless, moderate elements in the
party
gradually gained control and softened its policies, both
domestic
and foreign. In the 1970 national elections, the KOK
increased
the number of its seats in the Eduskunta by one-third, and
since
1979 it has been the largest nonsocialist party in the
country.
Some right-wing members of the KOK, dissatisfied with
the
party's steady drift toward the political center, have
left it.
In 1973 some formed the Constitutional Party of the Right
(Perustuslaillinen Oikeistopuolue--POP) to protest
Kekkonen's
special election to the presidency in 1974, but this only
accelerated the KOK's move toward moderation. Under the
leadership of Harri Holkeri--the party's candidate for the
presidency in 1982 and in 1988, and Ilkka
Suominen--longtime
party chairman, the KOK has been able to attract many of
those
employed in Finland's rapidly growing service sector, and
in the
1987 elections it nearly overtook the SDP. Kept out of
power
because of unexpected losses in the 1983 Eduskunta
elections,
Holkeri was able to form a government after the 1987
elections
and to take the prime ministership for himself. He pledged
his
government to a program of preserving Finland's welfare
state
while maintaining a free market economy strong enough to
be
competitive abroad and to safeguard the country's
prosperity.
Data as of December 1988
|
