1994 Swedish general election

1994 Swedish general election
← outgoing members elected members →
All 349 seats in the Riksdag ; 175 seats needed for a majority
	Map of the election, showing the distribution of constituency and levelling seats, as well as the largest political bloc within each constituency.
PM before election; Carl Bildt ; Moderate	Elected PM; Ingvar Carlsson ; Social Democrats

Last updated December 02, 2024

General elections were held in Sweden on 18 September 1994.^[1] The Swedish Social Democratic Party remained the largest party in the Riksdag, winning 161 of the 349 seats.^[2] Led by Ingvar Carlsson, the party returned to power and formed a minority government after the election. This was the final time the Social Democrats recorded above 40% of the vote before the party's vote share steeply declined four years later and never recovered. The Greens also returned to the Riksdag in the 1994 elections, after a three-year absence.

The election saw the largest bloc differences for a generation, with the red-green parties making sizeable inroads into the blue heartlands of inner Småland and Western Götaland, at an even higher rate than 1988. The Social Democrats gathered more than 50% of the vote in all five northern counties, Blekinge, Södermanland, Västmanland and Örebro.^[3]

In spite of the loss of power, the Moderates retained their 80 seats and gained 0.5% from 1991. Due to the sizeable losses of their coalition, the net difference between the blocs was 53, with the red-greens making up 201 and the blue parties 148.^[3]

The Christian Democrats fared poorly, merely beating the threshold by 3,752 votes.^[3] New Democracy, a right-wing populist political party which had entered the Riksdag three years earlier, performed poorly, losing most of its voters and all of its seats in the Riksdag. In total the party's vote share dropped from 6.7% in 1991 to 1.2% in 1994. The election introduced an extended electoral cycle of four years, replacing the previous three-year terms.

The proportion of women elected to the Riksdag increased from 34% in 1991 to 40%,^[4]^[5] following a campaign by the Stödstrumporna [ sv ] (lit. 'The Support stockings') before the elections.^[6]

They were the first elections in the world in which the official results were published live on the nascent internet.^[7]

Debates

1994 Swedish general election debates
Date	Time	Organizers	Moderators	P Present I Invitee N Non-invitee
				S	M	L	C	KD	NyD	V	MP	Refs
												Refs
		Sveriges Television	Pia Brandelius [sv] Maud Zachrisson	P Ingvar Carlsson	P Carl Bildt	P Bengt Westerber	P Olof Johansson	P Alf Svensson	P Vivianne Franzén	P Gudrun Schyman	P Birger Schlaug	^[8]

Results



Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/–
	Swedish Social Democratic Party	2,513,905	45.25	161	+23
	Moderate Party	1,243,253	22.38	80	0
	Centre Party	425,153	7.65	27	–4
	Liberal People's Party	399,556	7.19	26	–7
	Left Party	342,988	6.17	22	+6
	Green Party	279,042	5.02	18	+18
	Christian Democratic Society Party	225,974	4.07	15	–11
	New Democracy	68,663	1.24	0	–25
	Other parties	57,006	1.03	0	0
Total		5,555,540	100.00	349	0

Valid votes		5,555,540	98.50
Invalid/blank votes		84,853	1.50
Total votes		5,640,393	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		6,496,120	86.83
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

Seat distribution

Constituency	Total seats	Seats won
		By party							By coalition
		S	M	C	F	V	MP	KDS	Left	Right	Others

Älvsborg North	12	5	2	1	1	1	1	1	6	5	1
Älvsborg South	6	3	2	1					3	3
Blekinge	6	4	2						4	2
Bohus	13	5	3	1	1	1	1	1	6	6	1
Gävleborg	12	6	2	1	1	1	1		7	4	1
Gothenburg	17	7	4		2	2	1	1	9	7	1
Gotland	2	2							2
Halland	9	4	3	1	1				4	5
Jämtland	5	3	1	1					3	2
Jönköping	14	5	3	1	1	1	1	2	6	7	1
Kalmar	11	5	2	2		1		1	6	5
Kopparberg	13	6	2	1	1	1	1	1	7	5	1
Kristianstad	12	6	3	1	1			1	6	6
Kronoberg	6	3	2	1					3	3
Malmö	8	5	3						5	3
Malmöhus North	10	5	3	1	1				5	5
Malmöhus South	12	5	4	1	1		1		5	6	1
Norrbotten	11	8	1	1		1			9	2
Örebro	13	6	2	1	1	1	1	1	7	5	1
Östergötland	15	7	3	1	1	1	1	1	8	6	1
Skaraborg	12	5	2	1	1	1	1	1	6	5	1
Södermanland	11	5	2	1	1	1	1		6	4	1
Stockholm County	36	14	11	2	3	2	2	2	16	18	2
Stockholm Municipality	26	9	8	1	3	2	2	1	11	13	2
Uppsala	12	5	3	1	1	1	1		6	5	1
Värmland	11	6	2	1	1	1			7	4
Västerbotten	11	5	1	1	1	1	1	1	6	4	1
Västernorrland	12	6	2	1	1	1	1		7	4	1
Västmanland	11	6	2	1	1	1			7	4
Total	349	161	80	27	26	22	18	15	183	148	18
Source: Statistics Sweden

By municipality

Votes by municipality. The municipalities are the color of the party that got the most votes within the coalition that won relative majority.
Cartogram of the map to the left with each municipality rescaled to the number of valid votes cast.
Map showing the voting shifts from the 1991 to the 1994 election. Darker blue indicates a municipality voted more towards the parties that formed the centre-right bloc. Darker red indicates a municipality voted more towards the parties that form the left-wing bloc.
Votes by municipality as a scale from red/Left-wing bloc to blue/Centre-right bloc.
Cartogram of vote with each municipality rescaled in proportion to number of valid votes cast. Deeper blue represents a relative majority for the centre-right coalition, brighter red represents a relative majority for the left-wing coalition.

Related Research Articles

General elections were held in Sweden on 15 September 2002, alongside municipal and county council elections. The Swedish Social Democratic Party remained the largest party in the Riksdag, winning 144 of the 349 seats.

General elections were held in Sweden on 20 September 1998. The Swedish Social Democratic Party remained the largest party in the Riksdag, winning 131 of the 349 seats.

General elections were held in Sweden on 17 September 2006, to elect members to the Riksdag, the Swedish national legislature. All 349 seats were up for election: 310 fixed seats in 29 constituencies and 39 adjustment seats, used to ensure that parties have representation in the Riksdag proportional to their share of the national vote. The electoral system used was semi-open list proportional representation using the Sainte-Laguë method of allocating seats. Elections for County and Municipal councils were also held on the same day.

General elections were held in Sweden on 16 September 1973. The Social Democrats remained the largest party, winning 156 of the 350 seats.

General elections were held in Sweden on 19 September 1976. Although the Swedish Social Democratic Party remained the largest party, winning 152 of the 349 seats in the Riksdag, a coalition government was formed with the Centre Party, the People's Party and the conservative Moderate Party, which formed Sweden's first non-socialist government since 1936. Centre Party leader Thorbjörn Fälldin, who had widely been expected to take over the government in the previous election of 1973, was appointed prime minister, the first not from the Swedish Social Democratic Party since Axel Pehrsson-Bramstorp's brief interregnum 40 years earlier.

General elections were held in Sweden on 16 September 1979. Although the Swedish Social Democratic Party remained the largest party, winning 154 of the 349 seats in the Riksdag, the liberal interim government of Ola Ullsten was succeeded by another centre-right coalition government composed of the People's Party, the Moderate Party and the Centre Party, led by Centre Party leader Thorbjörn Fälldin. The three parties together won 175 seats, compared to the 174 won by the Social Democrats and Communists. It was the only time that non-socialist parties retained power in an election between 1928 and 2010. The Moderates dramatically increased their representation in the Riksdag, becoming the largest party of the non-socialist bloc, a position they maintained until 2022.

General elections were held in Sweden on 19 September 1982. They saw the return of the Swedish Social Democratic Party to power after six years in opposition, the longest period in opposition by the Social Democrats since the 1910s. The center-right coalition of Thorbjörn Fälldin had earlier suffered a loss upon the breakup of the government in 1981, the year before the election, when the rightist Moderate Party chose to withdraw from the government, protesting against the centrist tax policies of the Fälldin government. After regaining power, Social Democratic leader Olof Palme succeeded in being elected Prime Minister again, having earlier held power between 1969 and 1976.

General elections were held in Sweden on 15 September 1985. The Swedish Social Democratic Party remained the largest party in the Riksdag, winning 159 of the 349 seats. Its leader, Olof Palme, kept his position as prime minister. He would retain this position successfully until his assassination in 1986.

General elections were held in Sweden on 18 September 1988. The Swedish Social Democratic Party remained the largest party in the Riksdag, winning 156 of the 349 seats.

General elections were held in Sweden on 15 September 1991. The Swedish Social Democratic Party remained the largest party in the Riksdag, winning 138 of the 349 seats. However, it was the party's worst showing since 1928 with 37.7% of the vote.

Sweden held a general election on the 16 September 1973. Results are published by the Statistical Central Bureau.

General elections were held in Sweden on 19 September 1976. Results were published by the Statistical Central Bureau.

General elections were held in Sweden on 16 September 1979. The centre-right alliance won the election with a margin of 8,404 votes.

Sweden held a general election on 19 September 1982, resulting in a change of government as the Social Democrats and Olof Palme returned to government after six years in opposition. 45.6% of the vote marked the party's strongest showing since winning more than half the vote in 1968. The Moderates became larger than the Centre Party and the People's Party combined. Having already been larger than both in 1979, the Moderates firmly established itself as the dominant force on the centre-right opposition as both of their former coalition partners suffered sizeable losses in seats.

Sweden held a general election on the 15 September 1985.

Sweden held a general election on the 18 September 1988.

Sweden held a general election on the 15 September 1991.

Sweden held a general election on 18 September 1994. As of the 2022 election, this was the final time in which the Social Democrats won more than 45% of the overall vote, marking a steady decline thereafter. The Green Party replaced the New Democracy party in the Riksdag, with the seven elected parties being represented in parliament into the 2020s after the Christian Democrats narrowly beat the parliamentary 4% threshold by a mere 3,752 votes.

Sweden held a general election on 20 September 1998. Although the Social Democrats hung onto being the largest party and being the largest parliamentary bloc, the party had its worst election result in the unicameral Riksdag era at 36.4%. Both the Left Party and the Christian Democrats had record high results instead, while the Centre Party and People's Party had record low vote shares.

Sweden held a general election on 15 September 2002.

References

↑ Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p1858 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
↑ Nohlen & Stöver, p1873
1 2 3 "Allmänna valen 1994. Del 1, Riksdagsvalet den 18 september 1994" (PDF) (in Swedish). Statistical Central Bureau . Retrieved 18 November 2019.
↑ "Elections held in 1991". Inter-Parliamentary Union.
↑ "Elections held in 1994". Inter-Parliamentary Union.
↑ Törnqvist, Maria (2019). ”Varannan damernas eller hela makten? Kommentar till Maria-Pia Boëthius, "Krav på kvinnoparti"”. i Klara Arnberg, Fia Sundevall, David Tjeder. Könspolitiska nyckeltexter. Från Det går an till #metoo. p. 422–426
↑ General aspects of Sweden's electoral system Election Resources
↑ Slutdebatter – Val-94: Slutdebatt (in Swedish), retrieved 2024-02-01– via Sweden Sveriges Television AB, Stockholm

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[NS-1] Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p1858 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7

[N2-2] Nohlen & Stöver, p1873

[SCB-3] 1 2 3 "Allmänna valen 1994. Del 1, Riksdagsvalet den 18 september 1994" (PDF) (in Swedish). Statistical Central Bureau . Retrieved 18 November 2019.

[4] "Elections held in 1991". Inter-Parliamentary Union.

[5] "Elections held in 1994". Inter-Parliamentary Union.

[6] Törnqvist, Maria (2019). ”Varannan damernas eller hela makten? Kommentar till Maria-Pia Boëthius, "Krav på kvinnoparti"”. i Klara Arnberg, Fia Sundevall, David Tjeder. Könspolitiska nyckeltexter. Från Det går an till #metoo. p. 422–426

[7] General aspects of Sweden's electoral system Election Resources

[8] Slutdebatter – Val-94: Slutdebatt (in Swedish), retrieved 2024-02-01– via Sweden Sveriges Television AB, Stockholm

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

v t e Elections and referendums in Sweden
General elections	1866 1869 1872 1875 1878 1881 1884 1887 (Mar–Apr) 1887 (Aug–Sep) 1890 1893 1896 1899 1902 1905 1908 1911 1914 (Mar) 1914 (Sep) 1917 1920 1921 1924 1928 1932 1936 1940 1944 1948 1952 1956 1958 1960 1964 1968 1970 1973 1976 1979 1982 1985 1988 1991 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 2018 2022 2026
Local elections	1910 1912 1914 1916 1918 1919 1920 1922–23 1926–27 1930–31 1934–35 1938 1942 1946 1950 1954 1958 1962 1966 1970 1973 1976 1979 1982 1985 1988 1991 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 2018 2022 2026
European elections	1995 1999 2004 2009 2014 2019 2024
Referendums	1922 1955 1957 1980 1994 2003