[8] The party’s leader is Antti Kaikkonen, who was elected in June 2024 to succeed former minister Annika Saarikko.

Founded in 1906 as the Agrarian League (Finnish: Maalaisliitto; Swedish: Agrarförbundet), the party represented rural communities and supported the decentralisation of political power from Helsinki.

Twelve of the Prime Ministers of Finland, three of the Presidents and a former European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs have been from the party.

Before Finnish independence, political power in Finland was centralised in the capital and to the estates of the realm.

[10] Soon the ideas of humanity, education, the spirit of the land, peasant-like freedom, decentralisation, "the issue of poor people", progressivism[11] and later the "green wave" became the main political phrases used to describe the ideology of the party.

At the dawn of Finnish independence, conservative social forces made an attempt to establish the Kingdom of Finland.

The Agrarian League opposed monarchism fiercely,[11] even though monarchists claimed that a new king from the German Empire and Hohenzollern would have safeguarded Finnish foreign relations.

[14] The Agrarian League managed to maintain the republican voices in the Parliament until the fall of the German Empire which ruined the dreams of the monarchists.

For the Agrarian League, the centrist governments were just a transitional period toward an era which would integrate the red and white sides of the Civil War into one nation.

[16] In the 1933 Finnish parliamentary election, the main campaign issues were the differing attitudes toward democracy and the rule of law between the Patriotic Electoral Alliance (the National Coalition Party and the Patriotic People's Movement) and the Legality Front (the Social Democrats, the Agrarian League, the Swedish People's Party and the Progressives).

Kekkonen continued the active neutrality policy of his predecessor Juho Kusti Paasikivi, a doctrine which came to be known as the Paasikivi–Kekkonen line.

Immediately after this, the right-wing populist Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset) was founded by former members of SMP.

Despite urbanisation of Finland and a temporary nadir in support, the party managed to continue to attract voters.

[19] The Centre Party was a key player in making the decision to apply for Finnish EU membership in 1992.

The centrist tradition of defending equal political and economic rights for peripheral areas was reflected in the internal resistance that opposed chairperson Aho's ambitions to lead Finland into the EU.

Sipilä defeated young deputy chairperson Tuomo Puumala and a well known veteran politician Paavo Väyrynen in the voting.

The previous chairperson Mari Kiviniemi succeeded Matti Vanhanen as Prime Minister in 2010, serving in the office for one year.

Unlike many other large parties in Europe, its ideology is not primarily based on economic systems.

Rather, the ideas of humanity, education, the spirit of the land, peasant-like freedom, decentralisation, "the issue of poor people", environmentalism and progressivism play a key role in Centre Party politician speeches and writings.

[32] The party is also divided on the issue of deepening European integration[33] and contains a notable Eurosceptic faction based on its more rural interests.

[clarification needed] During the party's premierships between 2003 and 2011, these policies were also manifested as transferrals of certain government agencies from the capital to smaller cities in the regions.

Rural Finland and small towns still form the strongest base of support for the party, although it has also strived for a breakthrough in the major southern cities.

In the 2011 Finnish parliamentary election, the party received 4.5% of the votes cast in the capital, Helsinki, compared to the 33.4% in the largely rural electoral district of Oulu.

[39] In the European Parliament, the Center Party sits in the Renew Europe group with two MEPs.

[40][41] In the European Committee of the Regions, the Center Party sits in the Renew Europe CoR group with one full and two alternate members for the 2020-2025 mandate.