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1994 Swedish general election

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1994 Swedish general election
← 1991 18 September 1994 1998 →
All 349 seats in the Riksdag
175 seats needed for a majority
  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader Ingvar Carlsson Carl Bildt Olof Johansson
Party Social Democrats Moderate Centre
Last election 138 80 31
Seats won 161 80 27
Seat change Increase23 Steady0 Decrease4
Popular vote 2,513,905 1,243,253 425,153
Percentage 45.25% 22.38% 7.65%
Swing Increase7.54 pp Increase0.46 pp Decrease0.85 pp
  Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party
 
Leader Bengt Westerberg Gudrun Schyman Marianne Samuelsson
Birger Schlaug
Party Liberal People's Left Green
Last election 33 16 0
Seats won 26 22 18
Seat change Decrease7 Increase6 Increase18
Popular vote 399,556 342,988 279,042
Percentage 7.19% 6.17% 5.02%
Swing Decrease1.94 pp Increase1.66 pp Increase1.64 pp
  Seventh party
 
Leader Alf Svensson
Party Christian Democrats
Last election 26
Seats won 15
Seat change Decrease11
Popular vote 225,974
Percentage 4.07%
Swing Decrease3.07 pp
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

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

[edit]
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
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

[edit]
Main article: Results of the 1994 Swedish general election
PartyVotes%Seats+/–
Swedish Social Democratic Party2,513,90545.25161+23
Moderate Party1,243,25322.38800
Centre Party425,1537.6527–4
Liberal People's Party399,5567.1926–7
Left Party342,9886.1722+6
Green Party279,0425.0218+18
Christian Democratic Society Party225,9744.0715–11
New Democracy68,6631.240–25
Other parties57,0061.0300
Total5,555,540100.003490
Valid votes5,555,54098.50
Invalid/blank votes84,8531.50
Total votes5,640,393100.00
Registered voters/turnout6,496,12086.83
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

Seat distribution

[edit]
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

[edit]
  • Votes by municipality. The municipalities are the color of the party that got the most votes within the coalition that won relative majority.
    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.
    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.
    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.
    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.
    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.

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p1858 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
  2. ^ Nohlen & Stöver, p1873
  3. ^ a b c "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
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