1916 Finnish parliamentary election

Parliamentary elections were held in the Grand Duchy of Finland on 1 and 3 July 1916.

Background

The Finnish Parliament had not been in session during the early years of World War I. The Russian army's severe losses to the German army started to awaken among the Finns the hope that they could get regain self-government. The Russian government's plan to totally Russify Finland had been leaked to several Finnish newspapers in 1914, and had been heavily criticized. Its implementation had been suspended for the duration of the war.

Campaign

The workers' and tenant farmers' discontent with their social and economic problems was growing; workers still had to work an average of ten hours per day, and the tenant farmers still rented their lands from the landowning peasants, and they could be expelled from those lands if they did not fulfill their contracts' quite strict conditions. The Social Democrats managed to win their first and so far only parliamentary majority in the Finnish elections by promising more effectively than the bourgeois parties to help the poor and underprivileged people among the Finns.[1][2]

Results

Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/–
	Social Democratic Party	376,030	47.29	103	+13
	Finnish Party	139,111	17.49	33	–5
	Young Finnish Party	99,419	12.50	23	–6
	Swedish People's Party	93,555	11.76	21	–4
	Agrarian League	71,608	9.00	19	+1
	Christian Workers' Union	14,626	1.84	1	+1
	Others	860	0.11	0	–
Total		795,209	100	200	0
Valid votes		795,209	99.29
Invalid/blank votes		5,725	0.71
Total votes cast		800,934	100
Registered voters/turnout		1,442,091	55.54
Source: Mackie & Rose[3]

Popular vote SDP   47.29% SP   17.49% NSP   12.50% RKP   11.76% ML   9.00% KTL   1.84% Others   0.11%

Parliament seats SDP   51.50% SP   16.50% NSP   11.50% RKP   10.50% ML   9.50% KTL   0.50%

References

1. Seppo Zetterberg et al (2003_ A Small Giant of the Finnish History WSOY
2. Allan Tiitta and Seppo Zetterberg (1992) Finland Through the Ages Reader's Digest
3. Thomas T Mackie & Richard Rose (1991) The International Almanac of Electoral History, Macmillan, p243 (vote figures)