Relationship To Mainstream Politics
IKL participated in parliamentary elections. In 1933 its election list was pooled with the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus), and got 14 seats out of 200. Kokoomus collapsed from 42 to 18 seats. After the collapse, Juho Kusti Paasikivi was elected chairman of Kokoomus. He converted his party to the voice of big business and as such had no interest in the direct action tactics of IKL, and thus weeded out the most outspoken IKL sympathizers from the party.
IKL came under increasing scrutiny from government and was subject to two laws designed to arrest its progress. In 1934 a law passed allowing the suppression of propaganda which brought government or constitution into contempt and this was used against the movement, whilst the following year a law banning political uniforms and private uniformed organisations came in, seriously impacting on the Sinimustat in particular.
IKL kept its 14 seats in the elections of 1936 but was weakened by the overwhelming victory for the coming social democrat-agrarian coalition that would replace in the autumn of 1936 the narrow right-wing minority government of Toivo Mikael Kivimäki. The strong new government soon moved against the IKL, with Urho Kekkonen, then Minister of the Interior, bringing legal proceedings against the movement late in 1938. However, the courts did not find sufficient grounds for banning IKL. Despite this the prosperity experienced under Cajander's government hit the IKL and in the 1939 elections they managed only 8 seats. Kekkonen was one of two leading government opponents of the IKL who would later go on to serve as presidents of Finland, the other being Juho Kusti Paasikivi.
Read more about this topic: Patriotic People's Movement (Finland)
Famous quotes containing the words relationship to, relationship, mainstream and/or politics:
“Women, because of their colonial relationship to men, have to fight for their own independence. This fight for our own independence will lead to the growth and development of the revolutionary movement in this country. Only the independent woman can be truly effective in the larger revolutionary struggle.”
—Women’s Liberation Workshop, Students for a Democratic Society, Radical political/social activist organization. “Liberation of Women,” in New Left Notes (July 10, 1967)
“But the relationship of morality and power is a very subtle one. Because ultimately power without morality is no longer power.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)
“We in the South were ready for reconciliation, to be accepted as equals, to rejoin the mainstream of American political life. This yearning for what might be called political redemption was a significant factor in my successful campaign.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“The will to change begins in the body not in the mind
My politics is in my body, accruing and expanding with every act of resistance and each of my failures.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)