President Urho Kekkonen had gradually become dissatisfied with the performance of Prime Minister Sorsa, Finance Minister Johannes Virolainen and Foreign Minister Ahti Karjalainen: either they were not competent, diligent or courageous enough, or they spent too much time in partisan disputes, or - in Virolainen's case, especially - their foreign policy ability or understanding was not good enough. 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.
