It resigned because of internal disagreements over the ways to combat Finland's recession, which had largely been caused by the 1973 oil crisis, as well as the government's increased spending and taxes.

The Social Democrats and Centre Party also disagreed on regional policy over the extent to which the national government should re-distribute power and tax revenues to cities, towns and administrative provinces.

Although Helsinki was to host the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) at the end of July and at the start of August 1975, Kekkonen did not worry about the possibly negative effect on Finland's international image of having a caretaker government.

He appointed it, and chose Keijo Liinamaa of the Social Democratic Party as Prime Minister, who was the state labour disputes mediator.

Veteran Centrist politician Martti Miettunen finally succeeded, with the help of Kekkonen's strongly-worded televised speech, in forming a centre-left majority "emergency" government in November 1975.