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1994 Swedish general election

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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 23 0 4 Popular vote 2,513,905 1,243,253 425,153 Percentage 45.25% 22.38% 7.65% Swing 7.54 pp 0.46 pp 0.85 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 7 6 18 Popular vote 399,556 342,988 279,042 Percentage 7.19% 6.17% 5.02% Swing 1.94 pp 1.66 pp 1.64 pp   Seventh party   Leader Alf Svensson Party Christian Democrats Last election 26 Seats won 15 Seat change 11 Popular vote 225,974 Percentage 4.07% Swing 3.07 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. The Swedish Social Democratic Party remained the largest party in the Riksdag, winning 161 of the 349 seats. 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.

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.

The Christian Democrats fared poorly, merely beating the threshold by 3,752 votes. 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%, following a campaign by the Stödstrumporna [sv] (lit. 'The Support stockings') before the elections.

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

Debates

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

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.

References

1. Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p1858 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
2. Nohlen & Stöver, p1873
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

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• 1994 elections in Sweden
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