1962 Finnish presidential election

← 1956 15–16 January 1962 1968 →

Candidate Urho Kekkonen Paavo Aitio Rafael Paasio Party Agrarian SKDL SDP Electoral vote 199 62 37 Popular vote 1,394,886 451,750 289,366

President before election Urho Kekkonen Agrarian Elected President Urho Kekkonen Agrarian

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Two-stage presidential elections were held inFinland in 1962. On 15 and 16 January the public elected presidential electors to an electoral college.^[1] They in turn elected the President. The result was a victory forUrho Kekkonen, who won on the first ballot.^[2] The turnout for the popular vote was 81.5%.^[3]

Since Kekkonen's extremely narrow victory in the1956 Finnish presidential elections, his political opponents had planned to defeat him in the election of 1962.

In the spring of 1961, theSocial Democrats,National Coalition Party,Swedish People's Party,People's Party,Small Farmers' Party and theLiberal League nominated formerChancellor of JusticeOlavi Honka as their presidential candidate.

The Honka League's goal was to receive a majority of the 300 presidential electors, and thus defeat President Kekkonen.

At the end of October 1961, theSoviet government sent adiplomatic note to the Finnish Government, claiming thatneo-fascism and militarism were growing so much inWest Germany that Finland and the Soviet Union were in danger of being attacked by that country or by some otherNATO member states.

Thus the Soviet Union asked Finland to negotiate on possible joint military co-operation under theFinno-Soviet Treaty articles.

TheNote Crisis alarmed many Finnish people, politicians and ordinary voters alike. In late November 1961, Honka dropped his presidential candidacy. Kekkonen then travelled to theSoviet Union where the Soviet leader,Nikita Khrushchev, briefly negotiated with him and assured the audience inNovosibirsk that Finland and the Soviet Union continued to have good relations, although some Finns tried to worsen them, and that joint military exercises were not needed, after all.

Following the Note Crisis, Kekkonen's popularity soared, as many Finnish voters believed him to be more capable than his opponents of defending Finland's neutrality and security. Kekkonen was easily re-elected President^[4][5][6]

• Presidential elections in Finland
• 1962 elections in Finland
• January 1962 in Europe

• CS1 Finnish-language sources (fi)
• Articles with short description
• Short description with empty Wikidata description
• Elections using electoral votes