Social Democratic Party of Finland

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Social Democratic Party of Finland




Name in Finnish	Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue
Name in Swedish	Finlands Socialdemokratiska Parti
Leader	Eero Heinäluoma

Founded	1899
Headquarters	Saariniemenkatu 6 00530 HELSINKI FINLAND

Political Ideology	Social democracy
Political Position	Left
European Affiliation	Party of European Socialists
International Affiliation	Socialist International
Colours	Red

Website	http://www.sdp.fi

See also	Finnish Politics Finnish Parliament Finnish Government Finnish President Political parties Elections

The Social Democratic Party of Finland (in Finnish: Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue, SDP) is one of the most influential political parties in Finland, along with the Centre Party and the National Coalition Party. It has been continuously in the Cabinet since 1995. SDP's social democratic politics are generally more moderate than those of the other left-leaning party, the Left Alliance.

In the early 20th century SDP steadily commanded some 40% of the vote, but after the Finnish Civil War of 1918, communists split from the party. After that, SDP has commanded 20–29% of the total votes in all elections where communists or their fronts have been allowed to operate. Even after support for the communist electoral organization SKDL dwindled in the 1980s, SDP's share of the popular vote has remained at 21–28 percent. The Social Democratic Party has about 59,000 members. Eero Heinäluoma is the party's current chairman. Tarja Halonen was SDP's winning candidate for presidency of Finland in 2000 and 2006. Also the two preceding presidents, Mauno Koivisto (term 1982–1994) and Martti Ahtisaari (term 1994–2000), have been Social Democrats.

In the 2007 parliamentary election, SDP received 21.4 percent of the vote and lost 8 seats to bring its total down to 45. It was the first time the party finished in third place since 1962.

Note that despite the fact that "sosiaali" in Finnish has a long "a", the name of this party is spelt with a short "a", for historical reasons. The official name (as registered in Finland's party registry) is Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue / Finlands Socialdemokratiska Parti r.p.

1 History
2 Prominent Social Democrats
3 List of party Chairmen
4 External links

[edit] History

The party was founded as the Finnish Labour Party (in Finnish: Suomen Työväenpuolue) in 1899. The name was changed to the present form in 1903. The party remained a chiefly extra-parliamentary movement until the universal suffrage of 1906, after which SDP's share of the votes and seats at best reached 47% in 1916, when the party secured a majority in the parliament. It lost its majority in the 1917 election and in 1918 started a rebellion that escalated into the Finnish Civil War. The war resulted in most party leaders on all levels being killed, imprisoned or seeking refuge abroad. In addition, the process leading to the Civil War and the war itself had stripped the party of its legitimacy and respectability in Finnish political life in the eyes of the right-wing majority. However, the political support for the party remained strong, and in the elections of 1919, the party, reorganised by Väinö Tanner, gained some 80 of the 200 seats in the parliament. Some refugee Social Democrats founded the Communist Party of Finland in Moscow in 1918. Although the Communist Party was banned in Finland until 1945, the support of the Finnish working class was in the following elections divided between the Social Democrats and organizations acting as communist fronts.

It became the life's work of Väinö Tanner to regain the SDP's reputation as a party capable of dealing with serious matters, such as governing Finland. The result was a much more patriotic SDP, leaning a lot less to the left and relatively isolated from its Nordic sister parties. P.E. Svinhufvud's animosity however kept SDP out of the government during his presidency in 1931-1937. With the exception of a brief period in 1926, SDP was excluded from Cabinet participation until Kyösti Kallio was elected President in 1937. During World War II the party played a central role in a series of broad coalition Cabinets, symbolizing national unity forged in response to the threat of the USSR in the Winter War in 1939-40.

During the first few months of the Continuation War (1941-1944) the country, the parliament, and the Cabinet were divided on the question whether Finland's army should stop at the old border and thereby demonstratively refrain from any attempts of conquests. The country's dangerous position called however for national unity, and the party's leadership chose to refrain from any visible protests. This decision is often indicated as one of the main reasons behind post-war division and the high percentage of Communist voters in the first elections after the Continuation War.

After the Continuation War, the Communist Party was allowed to work openly, and the main feature of Finnish political life during period 1944–1949 was fierce competition between the Social Democrats and the Communists for voters and control of the labor unions. At this time, the political field was divided roughly equally between the Social Democrats, Communists and the Agrarian League, each party commanding some 25% of the vote. In the post-war era, the Social Democratic party adopted a line defending the Finnish sovereignty and democracy in line with the Agrarian League and other bourgeois parties, finally leading to the expulsion of the Communists from the Cabinet in 1949. However, it remained obvious that the Soviet Union was much more openly critical against SDP than against the "openly" bourgeois parties.

In the presidential election of 1956, SDP's candidate Karl-August Fagerholm lost with only one single elector's vote to Urho Kekkonen. Fagerholm would act as a Prime Minister in 1956-1957 and 1958-1959. The latter Cabinet was, however, forced to resign due to Soviet pressure, leading to a series of Agrarian League Cabinets. In 1958 a Soviet-friendly faction of the party resigned and formed the Alliance of Finnish Workers and Small Farmers around the former SDP chairman Emil Skog due to the election of Väinö Tanner as party chairman. During the 1960s, this fraction dwindled, its members returning little by little to the SDP or joining the Communists.

Only in 1966, SDP was able to satisfy the Soviet Union about its friendly attitude towards her and could return to the Cabinet. Since then, SDP has been represented in most Finnish Cabinets, often cooperating with the Centre Party (former Agrarian League), but sometimes also with the National Coalition Party. The most recent opposition period occurred in 1991–1995, when the Cabinet was formed by the Centre Party and the National Coalition Party. During this time, the party adopted its current pro-European line and contributed actively to the Finnish membership in the European Union in 1995 in concert with the Cabinet.

SDP won 53 of the 200 seats in Parliament in the March 16, 2003 elections, which ended in a very close run with the Centre Party. As a result, SDP's former chairman Paavo Lipponen became the Speaker of Parliament, and the Centre chairwoman Anneli Jäätteenmäki became Prime Minister for a coalition Cabinet that also included the minor Swedish People's Party beside the two major partners. SDP has eight portfolios in the Cabinet. After two months Jäätteenmäki resigned due to a scandal and was replaced by Matti Vanhanen.