Urho Kekkonen's successor as president was the social democrat Mauno Koivisto. A war veteran, Koivisto had made a name for himself in the early 1950s as a determined and active opponent of communist influence in the trade union movement in his home town of Turku, before moving to the capital in 1958 to become director of the Helsinki workers' savings bank. Minister of finance in the centre-left Paasio government (1966–68) and prime minister from 1968 to 1970, Koivisto managed to preserve his reputation during the next decade, when many other aspiring candidates for the presidency were coming to grief, by staying out of active politics as head of the bank of Finland. Appointed prime minister for a second time in May 1979, and riding high in the public opinion polls as the man favoured by the electorate to become the next president, Koivisto further strengthened his position and prestige in the country by countering Kekkonen's veiled ultimatum in April 1981 that he sort out delays and confusion in government business or resign with the argument that he still commanded majority support in parliament. Kekkonen's resignation at the end of October on the grounds of ill health gave Koivisto the added advantage of being able to enter the presidential campaign as acting president. Of the eight candidates, Koivisto was the clear favourite of the voters, who turned out in record numbers (an astonishing 87 per cent of the electorate). With 43 per cent of the popular vote, and the support of the reformist communists, he was elected president on the first ballot in the electoral college.