Keijo Liinamaa

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Keijo Antero Liinamaa (6 April 1929 – 28 June 1980) was a lawyer and caretaker Prime Minister of Finland.

Liinamaa, a lawyer specialised in labour law, began his career working for the Finnish Central Union of Trade Unions (SAK). In 1958, at only 29 years of age, he became the town manager of Mänttä, an industrial municipality in Western Finland. Upon the creation of a nation-wide labour dispute conciliation mechanism in the early 1960s, Liinamaa was appointed a regional labour dispute conciliator. In 1965 he became the National Labour Dispute Conciliator.

In 1965–1967 due to turbulent economic winds, Liinamaa was faced with conciling dozens of labour disputes. In his capacity as the National Conciliator, he was able to prevent several major strikes.

In 1967 Liinamaa was given a special task by Prime Minister Rafael Paasio: Liinamaa was to negotiate a comprehensive economical deal with employers' organisations and labour unions in order to prevent inflation due to rising wages. These negotiations resulted in the first Comprehensive Income Policy Agreement and brought fame to Liinamaa.

Radical changes in support of political parties in the parliamentary elections of 1970 lead to severe political conflicts: no political coalition could be established to form a cabinet. President Urho Kekkonen appointed a caretaker cabinet headed by Teuvo Aura. Under Prime Minister Aura, Liinamaa served as the Justice Minister for sixty-three days in May–July 1970 until a new coalition government was formed by Ahti Karjalainen.

Karjalainen's coalition fell in the autumn of 1971 and early parliamentary elections were called. A second caretaker cabinet led by Teuvo Aura was appointed, where Liinamaa served as Minister of Labour from October 1971 to February 1972.

Following the election of 1975, the political parties couldn't agree on terms for a coalition government. President Kekkonen appointed Keijo Liinamaa as Prime Minister of a caretaker government that lasted from June till November 1975. Kekkonen's intervention made possible the formation of a new coalition government under Martti Miettunen in the autumn of 1975.

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