The Helsinki City Council turns 150 years next year. The City Council’s first meeting was in 1875. In 1919, the first City Council that had been elected by universal and equal suffrage began its work.
The Helsinki City Council’s first meeting on 12 January 1875 was chaotic. The new councillors were meeting in the Bock House, in the room now known as the Empire Room, which back then was the council hall for the town hall magistrate. Among other things, there was uncertainty as to how the chairman would be elected. The first meeting of the new decision-making body was at hand. The meeting stretched to three hours.
Fredrik Pipping was elected as chairman of the City Council first, but he pleaded illness and refused to accept the role. Leo Mechelin, who was elected after a new vote, did not initially want to become chairman either.
”Mechelin said that he would not be able to do the job properly, as he did not know how to be the chairman for a new council,” says historian Tero Halonen, who has studied Mechelin’s work as chairman of the City Council in a research project for the Prime Minister's Office.
In the end, Mechelin accepted the role.
”One of the reasons Mechelin was chosen was because he was Professor of Administrative Law and he knew how administration works. The new administration needed his expertise,” says Halonen.
The City Council became the highest decision-making body in 1875, but the new and old governance styles had to be integrated. According to Halonen, an expert like Mechelin was needed especially when it came to clarifying the division of duties between the City Council and the magistrate.
In those times, the chairman of the City Council was in practice also the City Manager. Later on, Mechelin became one of the most important statesmen and political leaders in the Grand Duchy of Finland. He led the City Council on two occasions, first in the 1870s and later in the 1890s.
For Mechelin, the City Council was important not least because a Finnish City Council acted as a counterforce to russification policies.
”He felt it was important that the rule of law was firmly established in Finland,” says Halonen.
When the City Council began its work, Helsinki was a developing city with around 23,000 residents. It was also the capital of the Grand Duchy and the centre of science and culture.
The City Council was established based on a decree issued in 1873, which revoked the privileged status of holders of bourgeois right and tradesmen in the City Council.
The reform brought new duties to the cities, such as the school system, healthcare and poor relief. These duties had previously belonged to the church. Taxation also changed to a unified municipal tax, where previously, separate taxes had applied to separate tasks and operations.
The reform brought new participants to decision-making, for instance public servants in the senate, university professors, officers, and factory managers.
“Finnish cities had grown in a way that no longer allowed them to be ruled on the basis of bourgeois privilege, since the cities were home to an increasing number of people who did not belong to the bourgeois class, such as public servants,” says Halonen.
The first City Council was elected using an electoral system that somewhat resembled how decision-making works in limited liability companies today: those who owned the most had the most say in decision-making.
Back then, municipal elections favoured the wealthy, as the system was founded upon the idea that only those who paid municipal tax could decide how the tax money was used. The more you paid in taxes, the more votes you had at your disposal. One person could have up to 25 votes.
People with the lowest income did not have the right to vote or the eligibility to stand as a candidate. Therefore, representatives of the working class were not admitted to the Council. Even a small number of women had the right to vote, namely unmarried women and widows who paid municipal tax. They could not become Councillors, but they could be members in committees.
“The first City Council was elected using an electoral system that somewhat resembled how decision-making works in limited liability companies today: those who owned the most had the most say in decision-making,” says Halonen.
Halonen explains that compared to the previous system, the reform that came with the 1873 municipal statute was still an important step toward democracy and civil society.
In 1919, the local self-government of Helsinki went through a major reform. That was when the first City Council elected by universal and equal suffrage took office. The earlier system had in practice offered no room for the working class, the poor, or women.
“The fact that such a massive democratic reform took place only six months after the Finnish Civil War can be considered quite a miracle. It made it possible even for the losing side to partake in decision-making,” says historian Kati Katajisto.
Katajisto reminds us that there was also foreign pressure to go over to universal and equal suffrage. The right wing of the bourgeois side opposed the transition. Finland, ruled by the Whites, had drawn upon the help of Germans in 1918. Since Germany lost World War I, the victorious
Western powers imposed the condition that in order to be recognized as an independent nation, Finland would have to follow democratic principles. Finland wanted to demonstrate its will to go down the road of Western democracy.
In the beginning of the 1900s, suffrage reform had been blocked by the Emperor of Russia. Katajisto speculates that if the reform had been implemented earlier, the Civil War could have been avoided.
“Municipal, democratic suffrage reform was one of the central demands of the working class and a key component in radicalisation. The welfare state did not exist at the time, so all important questions regarding relief work and food distribution were resolved on a municipal level, where the decision-making power was solely in the hands of the bourgeois side. This fuelled mistrust in 1917 and 1918,” says Katajisto.
There was a desire to create a modern and forward-looking city which could be compared favourably to other European capitals.
In Helsinki, the Social Democratic Party of Finland won the elections held at the end of 1918. Despite this, the bourgeois side had the qualified majority because the Swedish People's Party and the National Coalition Party were the second and third biggest parties respectively.
Notable figures in the first council include chairman Alexander Frey of the Swedish People's Party, Väinö Tanner of the Social Democratic Party, and K.A. Paloheimo of the National Coalition Party. Councillor Miina Sillanpää of the Social Democratic Party was one of the first female councillors and later also the first female minister.
In 1918, Helsinki had around 155,000 residents, when back in 1875, the number of residents was around 23,000. Although the recent times had been tragic, the city was on the brink of a new era and enthusiasm was high. After all, the city was the capital of the now independent Finland.
“This boosted morale. There was a desire to create a modern and forward-looking city which could be compared favourably to other European capitals,” says Katajisto.
Although big decisions have been made during the 150-year history of the City Council, including the Helsinki metro and the great regional annexation, Katajisto wants to point out the importance of so-called small decisions and everyday diligence.
“I would emphasise the value of the work done in the council, as that is how councillors do systematic work for their city, one decision at a time. It is slow, laborious, difficult, and often bureaucratic work, but the city would be in bad shape without it. I take my hat off to the daily toil,“ says Katajisto.
Main photo credit: Olof Sundström/Helsinki City Museum. Photo from 1929.
Apart from those who were interviewed, information for the article was also provided by Professor Laura Kolbe. A brochure for the The Lion Block (PDF, 1.5 MB) and the website of the open statistical databases in the Helsinki Region(Link leads to external service) were used as sources.
