Finnish Rural Party
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Finnish Rural Party
Suomen Maaseudun Puolue |
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|---|---|
| Founded | 1959 |
| Dissolved | 1995 (de facto) 2003 (de jure) |
| Succeeded by | Finns Party (de facto) |
| Headquarters | Helsinki |
| Ideology |
Right/Left-wing populism Agrarianism |
| European affiliation | None |
| International affiliation | None |
| European Parliament group | None |
The Finnish Rural Party (Finnish: Suomen maaseudun puolue, SMP; Swedish: Finlands landsbygdsparti, FLP) was a populist and agrarianpolitical party in Finland. Starting as a breakaway faction of the Agrarian League in 1959, the party was identified with the person of Veikko Vennamo, a former Agrarian League Member of Parliament known for his opposition to the politics of President Urho Kekkonen. Vennamo was chairman of the Finnish Rural Party between 1959 and 1979.
Support for the party was at its highest in the 1970s and 1980s, with its share of the votes reaching around 10 percent in some parliamentary elections. In the 1990s, the party fell into financial trouble, and was discontinued in 1995. The True Finns party is the successor of the Finnish Rural Party.
The founder of the Finnish Rural Party was Veikko Vennamo, leader of a faction in the Agrarian League (which was renamed Centre Party in 1965). The relations of Veikko Vennamo and the Agrarian League's strong man Urho Kekkonen were icy at best, and after Kekkonen was elected president in 1956 Vennamo ran into serious disagreement with the party secretary, Arvo Korsimo, and was excluded from the parliamentary group. As a result, he immediately founded his own party in 1959.
The Finnish Rural Party started as a protest movement, with support from the unemployed and small farmers. The state-sponsored resettlement of veterans of World War II and evacuees from ceded Karelia into independent small farms provided an independent power base to Vennamo. Vennamo was the honorary chairman of Asutusliitto, the resettler society, and the society was involved in early campaigning. For the newly founded party, the main carrying force was Vennamo, who was charismatic, a good orator and a skilled negotiator.
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