Editing Pehr Evind Svinhufvud (section)

==Prime Minister and President==
[[File:Eero Järnefelt - Portrait of Pehr Evind Svinhufvud.jpg|thumb|150px|Portrait by [[Eero Järnefelt]] in 1933]]
[[File:Svinhufvud med familj.jpg|thumb|Svinhufvud with his family on his 75th birthday in 1936]]

In 1925 he was the presidential candidate for the conservative [[National Coalition Party (Finland)|''Kokoomus'' party]], but was not elected. After the emergence of the [[anti-communist]] [[Lapua Movement]], President [[Lauri Kristian Relander|Relander]] appointed him as [[Prime Minister of Finland]] on the Lapua Movement's insistence. Svinhufvud was elected president in 1931, and appointed Mannerheim as Chairman of the Defence Council, not least of all as an answer to the Lapua Movement's fear of having fought the Civil War in vain.

He resisted both [[Communism|communist]] agitation and the Lapua Movement's exploits. All Communist members of parliament were arrested. In February 1932 there was a so-called [[Mäntsälä Rebellion]], when the [[White Guard (Finland)|''Suojeluskunta''-Militia]] and the Lapua Movement demanded the Cabinet's resignation. The turning point came with the President's broadcast radio speech, in which he called on the rebels to surrender and ordered all Civil Guard members who were heading for Mäntsälä to return to their homes:

{{blockquote|"Throughout my long life, I have struggled for the maintenance of law and justice, and I cannot permit the law to now be trampled underfoot and citizens to be led into armed conflict with one another.... Since I am now acting on my own responsibility, beholden to no-one, and have taken it upon myself to restore peace to the country, from now on every secret undertaking is aimed not only at the legal order but at me personally as well - at me, who have myself marched in the ranks of the Civil Guards as an upholder of social peace.... Peace must be established in the country as swiftly as possible, and the defects that exist in our national life must thereafter be eliminated within the framework of the legal order."}} His speech stopped the rebellion before anything serious happened.

[[File:Presidentti Svinhufvud - 1234,0487.jpg|thumb|upright|President Svinhufvud in the market square of [[Kuopio]] on August 24, 1934.]]
[[File:Presidentti Svinhufvud - 1234,0492.jpg|thumb|upright|President Svinhufvud shooting at Kuopio shooting range in 1934.]]
[[File:President Pehr Evind Svinhufvud giving a radio speech in honour of the 10th anniversary of the Finnish Broadcasting Company, 1936.jpg|thumb|right|President Svinhufvud giving a radio speech in honour of the 10th anniversary of the [[Finnish Broadcasting Company]] in 1936.]]

Svinhufvud was not a supporter of [[Parliamentarism]], or to put it differently, he believed that the President had a right to choose the Cabinet ministers after first consulting the parliamentary parties. Evidence of this semi-presidential attitude was the minority government of Toivo M. Kivimäki, which survived for 3 years and 10 months (December 1932 – October 1936). Svinhufvud strongly supported it, because he believed that it could effectively fight the Great Depression (which it did, generally speaking), he believed that Kivimäki had a strong personality like himself, and possibly because he hoped that the Agrarians and Swedish People's Party would let the Kivimäki government remain in office as a lesser evil, the greater evil being an Agrarian-Social Democratic government.

On the other hand, when a right-wing Conservative member of Parliament, Edwin Linkomies, proposed in 1934 that Finland abandon parliamentarism in favour of a government led by the President and that the President be given an absolute veto power over the laws passed by the Parliament, Svinhufvud opposed his ideas. In Svinhufvud's opinion, the Finnish President had enough power to lead the country, provided that the President had a strong personality. He believed it to be better for Finland if the Social Democrats could be kept outside of the Cabinet. In his opinion, they would implement too radical reforms that would lead the Finnish society into chaos or Marxism. On the other hand, he was realistic enough to admit privately to the German Ambassador to Finland, [[Wipert von Blücher]], that if he was re-elected, he would be unable to keep the Social Democrats in the opposition.

They were, after all, Finland's largest political party with over 40% of the deputies (see, for example, Seppo Zetterberg et al., ed., "A Small Giant of the Finnish History" / Suomen historian pikkujättiläinen, Helsinki: Werner Söderström Publications Ltd., 2003; Virkkunen, "The Finnish Presidents I"). It was due to this that, in the presidential election of 1937, the Social Democrats and the Agrarian party voted against him. He was not re-elected.

At the end of [[Winter War]], he unsuccessfully sought audience with both [[Adolf Hitler]] and [[Benito Mussolini]] but met only [[Pope Pius XII]]. During the [[Continuation War]] he supported the idea of an expansionistic war.

Svinhufvud's most important and beloved hobbies were [[hunting]] and [[precision shooting]]. His grandson Jorma Svinhufvud describes:<ref>{{cite web|url=https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-6934328|title="Sieltä tulee se Luumäen ukko!"– presidentti Svinhufvudin muisto elää Kotkaniemessä|first=Sirkka|last=Haverinen|publisher=[[YLE]]|date=November 14, 2013|access-date=December 12, 2019|language=fi}}</ref> {{blockquote|As an old man, he was still a Finnish multiple champion. At the time of the World Shooting Championships in Finland, he was a guest of honor, but he could not avoid participating in the competition itself. He then took part in the shooting of the elders and won the competition.}}

Svinhufvud died at [[Luumäki]] in 1944, while Finland was seeking peace with the [[Soviet Union]].{{citation needed|date=September 2021}}

He refused to [[Finnicize]] the name of his 500-year-old noble house.{{citation needed|date=September 2021}}