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Finland Smaller Parties and the Greens
In addition to the four large parties discussed above,
which
among them enjoyed the support of about 80 percent of
Finland's
voters, and the SFP, which despite its small size had an
almost
permanent place in coalition governments, there were
several
other political parties that had a role in governing the
country.
One, the LKP, was a vestige of its former self; others,
such as
the Greens or the SMP were responses to trends seen
elsewhere in
recent decades in Western Europe.
The LKP is directly descended from the Young Finn
Party,
which after independence took the name National
Progressive Party
(Kansallinen Edistyspuolue--ED) and played a major role in
Finland during the interwar period
(see The Era of Russification
, ch. 1). After World War II, this party declined in
strength and
was dissolved in 1951. Liberals subsequently formed two
other
parties that joined together in 1965 under the present
name.
Liberals in one party organization or another continued to
participate in most governments until 1979. These liberals
were
proponents of business interests and the protection of
private
property, but they spoke also of the need for government
planning
and for social welfare programs. The LKP has steadily lost
support to the other nonsocialist parties, however. In the
1983
and the 1987 national elections, it failed to win any
seats in
the Eduskunta, and in the local elections of 1988 it lost
more
than a quarter of its representatives on municipal
councils. In
the late 1980s, the future of this once-important party
was
uncertain at best.
The SMP was founded in 1959 by the prominent and
charismatic
Kesk politician, Veikko Vennamo, who broke with Kekkonen
for both
political and personal reasons. The party, viewed for most
of its
life as rightist, has always campaigned as a protest party
fighting for the interests of the "forgotten man,"
neglected or
ignored by larger parties. This populist party first found
support among small farmers, but it later received votes
also
from city dwellers who were keenly dissatisfied with
mainstream
politics. The SMP's support fluctuated wildly from
election to
election, and no safe estimate about its future was
possible in
the late 1980s. This was especially the case after its
inclusion
in governing coalitions. After considerable success in the
1983
election, it got two ministerial posts. It therefore
competed in
the 1987 election as a governing party, and it lost nearly
half
its seats in parliament. Equally bad results were obtained
in the
1988 local elections. In addition, although led in recent
years
by the founder's son, Pekka Vennamo, the party was torn by
dissension. With a single post in the government, even
after the
disastrous 1987 results, the SMP was in danger of losing
its
character as a protest party, the role which had brought
it voter
support.
The Finnish Christian League (Suomen Kristillinen
Liitto--
SKL) was founded in 1958 to bring Christian ideals into
politics
and to curb secularist trends. Its members generally
belonged to
the state church, yet they did not claim to act in its
behalf but
for Christian values in general. The party's support has
fluctuated since it won its first seat in the Eduskunta in
1970.
The SKL has never had a ministerial post, even in 1979
when it
won ten parliamentary seats. Its share of votes declined
sharply
in the next national election, but rose again in 1987, and
observers believed that a reliable base of support
remained that
was likely to ensure its continued existence.
An environmentalist group, the Greens was not an
officially
registered party during the first years of its existence,
and it
therefore received no government support for the 1983 and
the
1987 national elections. It was organized in the early
1980s as
an electoral association to work on a variety of
quality-of-life
issues and to contest elections on both the local and the
national level. In 1983 the group won two seats in the
Eduskunta,
the first time an electoral association had managed such a
feat.
In the 1984 local elections, they doubled their support,
and in
the 1987 election they won four parliamentary seats.
The group's membership was heterogeneous with regard to
both
origins and aims. Activists were drawn from academia, the
middle
class, and the disabled, as well as from feminist and
bohemian
circles. This diversity was reflected in the multitude of
members' goals, ranging from modest reforms to a utopian
shutdown
of industry and a return to subsistence farming. In
mid-1988 part
of the movement split off and formed a registered
political
party, the Green League (Vihrea Liitto). The Greens as a
whole
suffered a slight setback in the 1988 local elections.
Given its
internal dissension, the role the environmentalist
movement was
to play in governing Finland was likely to remain small.
Data as of December 1988
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