Legislative Election in Finland (1907)

Parliamentary Elections in Finland (1907) ( Fin. Eduskuntavaalit 1907 ) - elections to Eduscunt of the Grand Duchy of Finland , which were held March 15-16, 1907.

In the fall of 1906, politicians began preliminary campaigning throughout the Grand Duchy of Finland , and the real campaign took place in January-March 1907, during which lists of three candidates were published, in which usually the state candidate from Helsinki was the first, and then the candidates from areas and volosts. In connection with the adoption of the law on universal and equal suffrage in 1906, women received 19 seats in parliament ^[1] .

In the unicameral parliamentary elections, the Social Democrats won 329,946 votes, the Finnish party - 234,573 , the Mladofin party - 121,267 , the Swedish People's Party - 112,267 , the Agrarian Union - 51,242 , the Christian Labor Union - 13,790 and the rest - 18,568 votes . The result obtained according to the d'Ondt system gave the Social Democrats 80 mandates, the Old Finns - 59, the Young Finns - 25, the Swedes - 24, the farmers - 10 and the Christians - 2 mandates. The result was a big surprise for the leading circles: constitutionalists, who represented the majority in two of the four estates in the Sejm, who created the Senate Mechelin and believed that they had “won” in the general strike, received less than a quarter of the mandates divided between the two parties; the old Finns, who were ridiculed by the constitutionalists, got more mandates than the young Finns and the Swedes combined; agrarians got good positions, and the Social Democrats achieved the best result.

The Social Democrats significantly replenished their ranks due to the union of workers and young academic intelligentsia, who joined the party in 1905 after a general strike, and during the election campaign, party members used demonstrations and rallies to intensify their positions.

Old Finns focused on language policy and the traditional idea of ​​national development. They also had a rather radical social program in the spirit of cathedral socialism , but at the same time they took a conservative position in protecting the church, family, morality and national customs.

The new parliament began to take a reconciliatory stance on the issue of religion, maintaining the custom of opening and closing the session with a solemn procession for church service, but rejecting the offer to open the meeting with prayer.

Although the parliament was different from the previous class parliament, there was nevertheless a continuity between the old and the new parliament ^[2] .