Swedish general election, 1998

Swedish general election, 1998

20 September 1998

All 349 seats to the Riksdag 175 seats were needed for a majority   First party Second party Third party   Leader Göran Persson Carl Bildt Gudrun Schyman Party Social Democratic Moderate Left Last election 161 80 22 Seats won 131 82 43 Seat change 30 2 21 Popular vote 1,914,426 1,204,926 631,011 Percentage 36.4% 22.9% 12.0%   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Alf Svensson Lennart Daléus Lars Leijonborg Party Christian Democrats Centre Liberal People's Last election 15 27 26 Seats won 42 18 17 Seat change 27 9 9 Popular vote 619,046 269,762 248,076 Percentage 11.8% 5.1% 4.7%   Seventh party   Leader Marianne Samuelsson Birger Schlaug Party Green Last election 18 Seats won 16 Seat change 2 Popular vote 236,699 Percentage 4.5%

PM before election Göran Persson Social Democratic Elected PM Göran Persson Social Democratic

General elections were held in Sweden on 20 September 1998.^[1] The Swedish Social Democratic Party remained the largest party in the Riksdag, winning 131 of the 349 seats.^[2]

The incumbent Social Democratic minority government, led by Göran Persson, was returned to power despite losing seats and receiving fewer votes than in their 1991 defeat. They remained in power with support from the Left Party and the Green Party. While the three left-wing parties saw a net loss of 11 seats, the Left Party nearly doubled its representation in the Riksdag. This reflected how many Social Democratic voters were dissatisfied with the policies of the government, which had implemented austerity measures to reduce the budget deficit.

Results

Party	Votes	%	Seats	+/–
Swedish Social Democratic Party	1,914,426	36.4	131	–30
Moderate Party	1,204,926	22.9	82	+2
Left Party	631,011	12.0	43	+21
Christian Democrats	619,046	11.8	42	+27
Centre Party	269,762	5.1	18	–9
Liberal People's Party	248,076	4.7	17	–9
Green Party	236,699	4.5	16	–2
Swedish Senior Citizen Interest Party	52,869	1.0	0	0
The New Party	25,276	0.5	0	0
Sweden Democrats	19,624	0.4	0	0
New Future	9,171	0.2	0	0
New Democracy	8,297	0.2	0	0
Senior Citizen Party	6,865	0.1	0	0
Socialist Justice Party	3,044	0.1	0	0
Communist Party of Sweden	1,868	0.0	0	0
Enhet	1,725	0.0	0	0
Socialist Party	1,466	0.0	0	0
Other parties	6,971	0.1	0	0
Invalid/blank votes	113,466	–	–	–
Total	5,374,588	100	349	0
Registered voters/turnout	6,603,129	81.4	–	–
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

By municipality

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

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  Cartogram of the map to the left with each municipality rescaled to the number of valid votes cast.

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  Map showing the voting shifts from the 1994 to the 1998 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.

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