Mauno Koivisto

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In addition to his political engagements and ongoing career, Koivisto continued with his education, passing his intermediate examination in 1947 and his university entrance examination in 1949. In 1951, he became a primary school teacher. On 22 June 1952, he married Tellervo Kankaanranta. Together they had a daughter, Assi Koivisto, who was later voted to the electoral college during the 1982 presidential election. Koivisto graduated from the University of Turku with a Master of Arts degree and a licentiate in 1953, and had plans to become a sociologist. Three years later he completed his doctoral thesis, which examined social relations in the Turku dockyards. Koivisto also served as Vocational Counselor for the City of Turku, and as a member of the Turku City Council.

In 1957, he started working for the Helsinki Workers' Savings Bank and served as its general manager from 1959 to 1968. In 1968, he was appointed as the chairman of the board at the Bank of Finland, a position he held until 1982. During the 1960s, he witnessed a number of internal schisms within the Social Democratic Party, and made efforts to improve the party's relationships with both the communists and with President Urho Kekkonen.

Political career

The 1966 parliamentary election's Social Democratic victory saw the formation of a government under Prime Minister Rafael Paasio, with Koivisto, the party's expert on economic policy, assuming the role of the Minister of Finance. By the beginning of 1968, many SDP members had become disillusioned with Paasio's leadership style, and Koivisto emerged as the chief candidate to succeed Paasio as Prime Minister. Koivisto became the Prime Minister of his first government, the Koivisto I Cabinet, on 22 March 1968. He served as Prime Minister for two years until the 1970 parliamentary election, which saw the other parties in the coalition government—Centre, SKDL, SPP, and TPSL—suffer heavy losses, bringing about Koivisto's resignation.

In the 1970s, President Kekkonen started to regard Koivisto as a potential rival. To counter this, he threw his weight behind Koivisto's Social Democratic colleague, Kalevi Sorsa. For most of the decade, Koivisto concentrated on his work as the chairman of the Bank of Finland. The 1979 election saw him return as Prime Minister, forming a coalition government between the SDP, Centre, SPP, and SKDL. By this point there was increasing dissatisfaction with the aging President Kekkonen, whose failing health was becoming difficult to conceal, and also a perceived lack of change. As Prime Minister and chairman of the Bank of Finland who enjoyed high ratings in opinion polls, Koivisto began to be seen as a likely future candidate for the presidency.

In early 1981, President Kekkonen began to regret Koivisto's appointment as Prime Minister and started to offer support to those who wanted to get rid of him. In the spring of 1981, members of Centre, which was serving as part of the government coalition, launched a behind-the-scenes attempt to bring down the government through a parliamentary motion of no confidence, so that Koivisto would not be able to conduct a presidential election campaign from the position of Prime Minister. At the critical moment Koivisto managed to gain the support of the SKDL. He was thus able to call Kekkonen's bluff by refusing to tender his resignation, reminding Kekkonen that the prime minister and Cabinet were responsible to Parliament, not the president. This would have been unthinkable for most of Kekkonen's quarter-century in office, but by then Kekkonen no longer had the energy to topple the government.

Finnish historians, political scientists, and journalists still debate whether Kekkonen really wanted to dismiss Koivisto or whether Kekkonen simply wanted to speed up Koivisto's slow and ponderous decision-making. Some question whether this government crisis was just a part of the ruthless "presidential game" that top politicians such as Koivisto and Social Democratic chairman Sorsa were playing with one another. By October 1981, it became apparent that Kekkonen was too ill to carry out his duties, and he announced he would not run again. He resigned soon afterward, making Koivisto acting president. Koivisto was able to launch his presidential election campaign from the position.

During the campaign, Koivisto was questioned particularly thoroughly on two issues: the nature of his socialism and his relations to the Soviet Union. Describing the nature of his socialism, he referred to Eduard Bernstein, a revisionist social democrat, saying: "The important thing is the movement, not the goal." To a journalist's question, intended to be a difficult one, on the issue of relations with the Soviet Union, Koivisto replied that they were nothing to boast about; this answer increased his popularity. Koivisto did not want to be elected with the support of the Soviet Union.

The voter turnout in the presidential elections was nearly 90%. Koivisto's wife and daughter were among the members of the electoral college. Koivisto won 167 of the 301 votes of the electoral college in the first round; his closest competitor, NCP candidate Harri Holkeri, received 58. As a result, Koivisto became Finland's first socialist president. His victory completed a long process of integrating the Social Democrats into Finland's political life, dating back to the Civil War.

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