Swedish general election, 1968

Swedish general election, 1968

15 September 1968

All 233 seats to the Second Chamber of the Riksdag 117 seats were needed for a majority   First party Second party Third party   Leader Tage Erlander Gunnar Hedlund Sven Wedén Party Social Democratic Centre People's Last election 113 36 43 Seats won 125 39 34 Seat change 12 3 9 Popular vote 2,420,242 778,810 688,456 Percentage 50.1% 16.1% 14.3%   Fourth party Fifth party   Leader Yngve Holmberg C.-H. Hermansson Party Rightist Left-Communist Last election 33 8 Seats won 32 3 Seat change 1 5 Popular vote 621,031 145,172 Percentage 12.9% 3.0%

PM before election Tage Erlander Social Democratic Elected PM Tage Erlander Social Democratic

General elections were held in Sweden on 15 September 1968.^[1] Held in the wake of the crushing of the Prague spring, it resulted in a landslide victory for the Social Democratic government and Prime Minister Tage Erlander. It is one of two general elections in Swedish history where a single party received more than half of the vote (the other being the election of 1940). Erlander would resign the following year after an uninterrupted tenure of 23 years as head of government.

The Social Democrats had held the office of Prime Minister since 1932 except a three-month "holiday cabinet" in 1936. This was due to the Social Democrats' absolute majority in the First chamber and a steady majority for them in general elections and also at large in municipality and county council elections, of which the latter gave them the majority in the First chamber. When they did not have an absolute majority in the Second chamber the Social Democrats could rely on a passive support from the Communists as the Social Democrats almost always nearly had half of the seats there. The two socialist parties in the Riksdag did not however win a majority in the general elections of 1952 and 1956.

Results

Party	Votes	%	Seats	+/–
Swedish Social Democratic Party	2,420,277	50.1	125	+12
Centre Party	757,215	15.7	39	+3
People's Party	688,456	14.3	34	–9
Rightist Party	621,031	12.9	32	–1
Left Party Communists	145,172	3.0	3	–5
Civic Unity^[a]	82,082	1.7	–	–
Christian Democratic Unity	72,377	1.5	0	0
Middle Parties^[b]	41,307	0.9	–	–
Other parties	1,462	0.0	0	0
Invalid/blank votes	32,522	–	–	–
Total	4,861,901	100	233	0
Registered voters/turnout	5,445,333	89.3	–	–
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

^a Civic Unity was a joint list of the three right-wing parties in Malmö.

^b The Middle Parties was a coalition of the Centre Party and People's Party that contested some constituencies.^[2]

References

1. Nohlen, D & Stöver, P (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p1858 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
2. Nohlen & Stöver, p1861