Editing Lauri Kristian Relander (section)

==President==
[[File:Relander and Čakste.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Relander and [[President of Latvia]] [[Jānis Čakste]] during Relander's 1926 official visit to [[Latvia]]. In the background, the [[Foreign Minister of Finland]] [[Eemil Nestor Setälä]] to the right.]]
As President, Relander was politically inexperienced and young. Politicians and other opinion leaders could not take him seriously{{Citation needed|date=September 2008}}. Relander had no political base to speak of, and he was deemed to have no particular program for his presidency,<ref name="pietiläinen"/> which further decreased his support. Even Relander's continual state visits and trips drew criticism, leading to him gaining the nickname of ''Reissu-Lasse'' (Travelling Lasse). He was continually compared to Ståhlberg and his performance as president, which was the almost complete opposite of Relander. Ståhlberg, of course, did not appreciate his successor at all but would have preferred to have seen Ryti as his successor; when Relander was elected, he muttered: {{quote|May those take care of him who have hired him for it.<ref>Olavi Jouslehto & Jaakko Okker: ''Tamminiemestä Mäntyniemeen'', p. 33. Porvoo-Helsinki: WSOY, 2000. (in Finnish)</ref>}} The cabinets during his term tended to be weak, short-lived [[minority cabinet]]s, like in most European democracies of the time. All in all, Relander is remembered as a weak leader. On the other hand, Relander was an idealist, deplored the toughness of political game and preferred minority governments of supposedly excellent individuals over majority governments of unprincipled individuals.<ref name="presidentit_1919-1931" />

Relander can not be considered a strong president, but he did a few notable things during his single term. He allowed the Social Democrats to form a minority government (1926–1927), appointed Finland's first female cabinet minister, [[Miina Sillanpää]] (as Assistant Minister of Social Welfare), dissolved Parliament twice (in 1929 over a dispute on the civil servants' salaries and in 1930 to have the Parliament outlaw the Communist Party, which required a constitutional amendment and thus a two-thirds majority), and generally supported the far-right [[Lapua Movement]] until it started to kidnap various political opponents. Relander himself considered his worst mistake to be shaking hands with the leader of the movement, [[Vihtori Kosola]], in connection with a peasant march in the summer of 1930, which was considered to be a good example of Relander's indiscretion.<ref name="pietiläinen">{{cite web|url=http://www.kansallisbiografia.fi/kb/artikkeli/628/ | title= Relander, Lauri Kristian (1883–1942) | last= Pietiäinen | first= Jukka-Pekka | website= Kansallisbiografia | date= June 7, 2000 | publisher= Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura | accessdate= December 12, 2019 | language= fi}}</ref> He maintained a rather close friendship with the Social Democratic leader, Väinö Tanner.<ref name="virkkunen_1994a" />

[[File:Relander sitting with book.jpg|thumb|Relander relaxing in [[Kultaranta]], a summer residence of the Finnish presidents]]
In the late autumn of 1930, Relander realized he would not be re-elected and during the winter of 1930–31 sabotaged the prospects of his former Agrarian League colleague and rival [[Kyösti Kallio]] so that [[Pehr Evind Svinhufvud]], Relander's former Prime Minister, was elected. In Relander's opinion, Kallio did not talk straight to him and schemed behind his back to weaken his presidency and help his political opponents. In Kallio's opinion, Relander was a rather inexperienced politician who had high ideals but not enough common sense to implement them.<ref name="virkkunen_1994a" /><ref name="virkkunen_1994b" /><ref name="presidentit_1919-1931" /><ref name="hokkanen">{{Cite book |last1= Hokkanen |first1= Kari |title= Kyösti Kallio 1, 1873–1929 |year= 1986 |publisher= Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö |location= Porvoo, Helsinki, Juva |language= Finnish}}</ref> As it is, the dispute between Relander and Kallio was due to personal chemistry and political line differences, as Relander, for example, was more positive about right-wing [[radical politics|radicalism]], a nationalist movement like the Lapua Movement, which marked his presidency so badly that his own party representatives were not worth defending. Even later, the battle for the party was later personified by Kallio and [[J. E. Sunila]], the latter of whom was supported by Relander.<ref name="pietiläinen"/>

After his term as president, he served from 1931 to 1942 as the General Manager of ''Suomen maalaisten paloapuyhdistys'', a fire insurance company for rural people.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.apu.fi/artikkelit/suomen-presidentit-sarja-relander-oli-sovittelija|title=Suomen presidentit -sarja: Relander oli sovittelija|work=Artikkelit|date=December 6, 2017|publisher=[[Apu (magazine)|Apu]]|access-date=May 24, 2021|language=fi}}</ref> Relander died on 9 February, 1942 of [[heart failure]].<ref name="pietiläinen"/> He was buried in the [[Hietaniemi Cemetery]].