Presidential Election in Finland (1968)

In 1968, two-stage presidential elections were held in Finland . On January 15 and 16, the public elected presidential electors to the electoral college. ^[1] They in turn elected the president. The result was the victory of Urho Kekkonen , who won in the first round of voting. ^[2] Turnout for a popular vote was 70.2%. ^[3]

← 1962 1978 →
Presidential Election in Finland (1968)
January 15 and 16
Candidate	Urho Kekkonen	Matti Virkkunen	Veikko Vennamo
The consignment	Party Center	National coalition	Finnish Rural Party
Votes	201%	66%	33%
Election result	Urho Kekkonen

Portal: Politics

Finland

Article from the series Political system Finland

State Constitution Proclamation of independence Human rights Military establishment

Executive power The president Prime Minister Government

Legislature Parliament Chairman of parliament

Judicial branch Supreme Administrative Court of Finland

Administrative division Regions (regions) Areas Communities (municipalities)

Two opponents of Kekkonen, candidate for the center-right National Coalition Party, director of the national commercial bank Matti Virkkunen and leader of the populist Finnish rural party Veikko Vennamo , criticized him for too autocratic administration of Finland.

Vennamo, in particular, accused Kekkonen of pursuing an overly dependent and slavish foreign policy towards the Soviet Union. Since nearly thirty percent of eligible voters of Finnish voters abstained from voting, there was some hidden displeasure with the presidential candidates or Kekkonen’s broad leadership over his two opponents. It is noteworthy that national coalitions and villagers - both opposition parties at the time - received clearly higher percentages of popular vote than in the 1966 parliamentary elections in Finland. This foreshadowed their main successes in the 1970 parliamentary elections in Finland . Although during this presidential campaign, Kekkonen promised not to run for president again, he extended his presidential term in 1973 and ran almost without resistance in 1978 .