General elections were held in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

on 15 September 2002, Nohlen, D & Stöver, P (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p1858 alongside

municipal A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

and county council elections. The

Swedish Social Democratic Party The Swedish Social Democratic Party, formally the Swedish Social Democratic Workers' Party ( sv, Sveriges socialdemokratiska arbetareparti ; S/SAP), usually referred to as The Social Democrats ( sv, link=no, Socialdemokraterna ), is a social-d ...

remained the largest party in the

Riksdag The Riksdag (, ; also sv, riksdagen or ''Sveriges riksdag'' ) is the legislature and the supreme decision-making body of Sweden. Since 1971, the Riksdag has been a unicameral legislature with 349 members (), elected proportionally and se ...

, winning 144 of the 349 seats.Nohlen & Stöver, p1873 After securing a

confidence and supply agreement In a parliamentary democracy based on the Westminster system, confidence and supply are required for a ruling cabinet to retain power in the lower house. A confidence-and-supply agreement is one whereby a party or independent members of parl ...

with the Left Party and the

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence. Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation ...

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

Göran Persson Hans Göran Persson (; born 20 January 1949) is a Swedish politician who served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1996 to 2006 and leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1996 to 2007. Persson was first elected to the Swedish Parlia ...

was able to remain in his position in a third consecutive term as a minority government. Although the bloc compositions were similar to

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

, the complexions of the centre-right bloc shifted radically. Under new party leader

Bo Lundgren Bo Axel Magnus Lundgren (born 11 July 1947) is a Swedish politician. He was the leader of the Moderate Party from 1999 to 2003.Moderates Moderate is an ideological category which designates a rejection of radical or extreme views, especially in regard to politics and religion. A moderate is considered someone occupying any mainstream position avoiding extreme views. In American ...

lost more than seven percentage points and barely held on as the largest party in its coalition. Only eight municipalities in all of Sweden had the Moderates as the largest party, six of which were in the Stockholm area. The Peoples' Party led by

Lars Leijonborg Lars is a common male name in Scandinavian countries. Origin ''Lars'' means "from the city of Laurentum". Lars is derived from the Latin name Laurentius, which means "from Laurentum" or "crowned with laurel". A homonymous Etruscan name was born ...

, instead more than doubled its parliamentary delegation and received above 13% of the vote. Lundgren resigned in the wake of the election, leading to the selection of future Prime Minister

Fredrik Reinfeldt John Fredrik Reinfeldt (pronounced ; born 4 August 1965) is a Swedish economist, lecturer, and former politician who was Prime Minister of Sweden from 2006 to 2014, and chairman of the liberal conservative Moderate Party from 2003 to 2015. He wa ...

as the Moderate leader. Among the four other Riksdag parties, the

Christian Democrats __NOTOC__ Christian democratic parties are political parties that seek to apply Christian principles to public policy. The underlying Christian democracy movement emerged in 19th-century Europe, largely under the influence of Catholic social ...

and the Left Party both lost ground, whereas the

Centre Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity ...

and Green parties managed to reach the parliamentary threshold of four percentage points. Among minor parties, the

Norrbotten Party The Norbotten Party (''Norrbottenspartiet'') was a minor, regional party in Sweden. The base of the party was in the most northern Swedish province, Norrbotten County, and in the local and regional parties, the Kiruna Party and the Norrbotten Hea ...

reached 9.4% of the vote in its

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

, polling above 20% in some inland areas, although this was not enough to gain a Riksdag seat. The

Sweden Democrats The Sweden Democrats ( sv , Sverigedemokraterna ; SD ) is a nationalist and right-wing populist political party in Sweden. As of 2022, it is the largest member of Sweden's right-wing governing bloc to which it provides confidence and supply, a ...

became the eight largest party for the first time, making sizeable gains and winning more council seats than ever before.

Results

Seat distribution

By municipality

Image:Sweden.2002.coalition.largest.map.svg, Votes by municipality. The municipalities are the color of the party that got the most votes ''within'' the coalition that won relative majority. Image:Sweden.2002.coalition.largest.cart.svg,

Cartogram A cartogram (also called a value-area map or an anamorphic map, the latter common among German-speakers) is a thematic map of a set of features (countries, provinces, etc.), in which their geographic size is altered to be directly proportiona ...

of the map to the left with each municipality rescaled to the number of valid votes cast. Image:Sweden.1998.to.2002.coalition.voting.shift.map.svg, Map showing the voting shifts from the 1998 to the 2002 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. Image:Sweden.2002.coalition.purple.map.svg, Votes by municipality as a scale from red/Left-wing bloc to blue/Centre-right bloc. Image:Sweden.2002.coalition.purple.cart.svg,

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.

Results

Seat distribution

By municipality

References

Further reading