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1979 Swedish general election

← 1976 16 September 1979 1982 →
All 349 seats in the Riksdag 175 seats needed for a majority
First party Second party Third party   Leader Olof Palme Gösta Bohman Thorbjörn Fälldin Party Social Democrats Moderate Centre Last election 152 55 86 Seats won 154 73 64 Seat change 2 18 22 Popular vote 2,356,234 1,108,406 984,589 Percentage 43.24% 20.34% 18.07% Swing 0.49 pp 4.75 pp 6.01 pp   Fourth party Fifth party   Leader Ola Ullsten Lars Werner Party People's Party Left Communists Last election 39 17 Seats won 38 20 Seat change 1 3 Popular vote 577,063 305,420 Percentage 10.59% 5.61% Swing 0.47 pp 0.86 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 Ola Ullsten People's Party Elected PM Thorbjörn Fälldin Centre

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.

Despite the unexpected victory, the coalition split in 1981 when the Moderates withdrew support in protest at Fälldin's tax policies, which they viewed as "too leftist". Despite not being the leader of the coalition party with the most seats, Fälldin had been the designate Prime Minister since his earlier resignation in 1978, upon disagreement over the question of nuclear power.

Debates

Results

Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/–
	Swedish Social Democratic Party	2,356,234	43.24	154	+2
	Moderate Party	1,108,406	20.34	73	+18
	Centre Party	984,589	18.07	64	–22
	People's Party	577,063	10.59	38	–1
	Left Party Communists	305,420	5.61	20	+3
	Christian Democratic Unity	75,993	1.39	0	0
	Communist Party	10,862	0.20	0	0
	Workers Party Communists	10,725	0.20	0	New
	Other parties	19,346	0.36	0	0
Total		5,448,638	100.00	349	0
Valid votes		5,448,638	99.43
Invalid/blank votes		31,488	0.57
Total votes		5,480,126	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		6,040,461	90.72
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 1976 to the 1979 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. Slutdebatter – Partiledardebatt (in Swedish), Sweden Sveriges Television AB, Stockholm, retrieved 2024-01-29

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• 1979 elections in Sweden
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