Finland 1939 parliamentary election

Final results from ParlGov, read 5 October 2026: Social Democratic Party of Finland won 85 of 200 seats with 39.8% of the vote; 66.6% of registered voters cast a ballot.

Finland
Held Saturday 1 July 1939

Result

101 for a majority

Social Democratic Party of Finland85
Centre Party56
National Coalition Party25
Swedish People's Party of Finland18
Patriotic People's Movement8
National Progressive Party / [Finnish] Liberal People's Party6
Small Farmers Party2

Seats and votes by party

Party	Seats	%	Votes
Social Democratic Party of Finland	85	39.8	515,980
Centre Party	56	22.9	296,529
National Coalition Party	25	13.6	176,215
Swedish People's Party of Finland	18	9.6	124,720
Patriotic People's Movement	8	6.6	86,219
National Progressive Party / [Finnish] Liberal People's Party	6	4.8	62,387
Small Farmers Party	2	2.1	27,783
Largest party without seats	0	0.5	5,980

Votes by party

Social Democratic Party of Finland 515,980
Centre Party 296,529
National Coalition Party 176,215
Swedish People's Party of Finland 124,720
Patriotic People's Movement 86,219
National Progressive Party / [Finnish] Liberal People's Party 62,387
Small Farmers Party 27,783
Largest party without seats 5,980

ParlGov lists parties with at least 1 percent of the vote or 2 seats, so the rows do not add up to the valid votes. How we read it.

ParlGov marks results before 1945 as experimental: they may need revision, so we compare them with no other election.

Share of the vote

Social Democratic Party of Finland39.8%
Centre Party22.9%
National Coalition Party13.6%
Swedish People's Party of Finland9.6%
Patriotic People's Movement6.6%
National Progressive Party / [Finnish] Liberal People's Party4.8%
Small Farmers Party2.1%

Turnout

66.6% of the 1,956,807 registered voters cast a ballot (1,302,348 ballots). 1,297,319 of them were valid votes. How turnout is counted.

Votes and seats

Social Democratic Party of Finland39.8% of votes42.5% of seats
Centre Party22.9% of votes28.0% of seats
National Coalition Party13.6% of votes12.5% of seats
Swedish People's Party of Finland9.6% of votes9.0% of seats
Patriotic People's Movement6.6% of votes4.0% of seats
National Progressive Party / [Finnish] Liberal People's Party4.8% of votes3.0% of seats
Small Farmers Party2.1% of votes1.0% of seats

Each party's share of the vote (outlined) and of the seats (filled)

The Gallagher index of disproportionality is 4.8 (0 when seats follow votes exactly); the effective number of parties is 4.1 by votes and 3.5 by seats; Social Democratic Party of Finland led Centre Party by 16.9 points of the vote. How these are computed.

Sources and licence

ParlGov 2024 Release (Döring and Manow), Harvard Dataverse (source). Licence: CC0 1.0 Universal
Wikidata, party colours (P465) (source). Licence: CC0 1.0 Universal

Our text and compilation: CC BY 4.0. How to reuse and cite this page.