Östersund Municipality (, ) is a

municipality 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 ...

Jämtland County Jämtland County ( sv, Jämtlands län, ) is a county or '' län'' in the middle of Sweden consisting of the provinces of Jämtland and Härjedalen, along with minor parts of Hälsingland and Ångermanland, plus two small uninhabited strips of ...

in northern

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 ...

. Its

seat A seat is a place to sit. The term may encompass additional features, such as back, armrest, head restraint but also headquarters in a wider sense. Types of seat The following are examples of different kinds of seat: * Armchair (furniture), ...

is located in

Östersund Östersund (; sma, Staare) is an urban area (city) in Jämtland in the middle of Sweden. It is the seat of Östersund Municipality and the capital of Jämtland County. Östersund is located at the shores of Sweden's fifth-largest lake, Storsjön, ...

, which is also the county seat of Jämtland County. The present municipality was formed in 1971 by the amalgamation of the

City A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

of Östersund with five surrounding rural municipalities.

Localities

There are ten localities (or urban areas) in Östersund Municipality:Statistics Sweden as of December 31, 2005
/ref> The municipal seat in

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Politics and governance

Swedish municipalities are responsible for government-mandated duties, and elections for the

municipal council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counci ...

(''

kommunfullmäktige A municipal council ( sv, Kommunfullmäktige) is the decision-making body governing each of the 290 municipalities of Sweden. Though the Swedish Local Government Act ( sv, Kommunallagen) uses the term "municipal assembly" in an English translatio ...

'') are held every four years, parallel to the

general election A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...

Political history

Östersund gained a city council (''stadsfullmäktige'') in 1863, known as ''Östersunds stad'', and each member was elected through a

single-winner voting system A single-member district is an electoral district represented by a single officeholder. It contrasts with a multi-member district, which is represented by multiple officeholders. Single-member districts are also sometimes called single-winner vot ...

. Sweden was democratized in the end of the 1910s and a more

parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

arian election system was introduced. Östersund continued to be governed by the ''burghers'', unlike Sweden nationally. The dominating parties were the conservatives, the freeminded and the

social democrats Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote so ...

. The latter did become the single largest party in 1938 but due to a strong centre-right majority it remained in opposition. The only other party present in Östersund was

the communists The Communist Alliance was registered on 16 March 2009 with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) as an Australian political party. It was an alliance of a number of Communist groups, individuals and ethnic-based communist parties. The Allian ...

, though they had little support in the city, having entered the city council in 1922 and lost representation completely in 1930. The conservatives was by far the largest party and had a majority of its own with 18 seats in 1922. After the municipal elections of 1950 the situation had changed. The conservatives was the smallest party with 10 seats, the liberals (now represented by the Liberal People's party) had 11 and the social democrats 19. This was in contrast to the turnout on a national level, where the social democrats had been the dominant party for over a decade gaining e.g. 46 percent of the votes in the general elections of 1948. In 1952 a social democrat was appointed chairman of Östersund's governing body, due to the lack of political blocs and the strive for mutual agreements. A majority for the social democrats was achieved first in 1962. The political scene was shortly afterwards altered, in 1966, when the agrian and rural Centre Party (previously known as ''Peasant's League'') got into the city council, after broadening its scope to include non-farmers, alongside 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 tea ...

(though not present on the national political scene) and the communists returning after a 40-year period of absence. ''The burghers'' was thus back in power. Following the rise of

Swedish welfare Social welfare in Sweden is made up of several organizations and systems dealing with welfare. It is mostly funded by taxes, and executed by the public sector on all levels of government as well as private organizations. It can be separated into t ...

the small municipalities could not cope with their assigned duties. As a result, large municipality blocks were introduced and ''Östersunds stad'' was heavily enlarged and several districts kilometres away from the city were included in the new ''Östersund Municipality''. The first election for the new municipality was held in 1970 and it was a large success for the Centre Party, both locally in Östersund and nationally due to its opposition towards

centralisation Centralisation or centralization (see spelling differences) is the process by which the activities of an organisation, particularly those regarding planning and decision-making, framing strategy and policies become concentrated within a particu ...

. Having entered in 1966 with 4 seats it now possessed one fourth of the total number of seats (which was mainly due to support from the city, not the newly included rural areas). Block politics formation became prominent and the Centre Party became the leading party for the centre-right block, whilst the Social Democrats came to dominate the left block. The Social Democrats regained power in 1980 and has since governed Östersund Municipality until present day (excluding a brief period in the 1990s) supported by the communists (after 1991 known as the Left Party) and occasionally 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 ...

. The Green Party has been in the municipal council since 1982.

2006 elections

In preparation for the 2006 municipal elections the centre-right parties in the opposition were joined, following the example done nationally with ''

Alliance for Sweden The Alliance ( sv, Alliansen), formerly the Alliance for Sweden (''Allians för Sverige''), was a centre-right liberal-conservative political alliance in Sweden. The Alliance consisted of the four centre-right political parties in the Riksdag. Th ...

'' as ''Alliance for Östersund''. The Green Party did not want to pick a side between the Alliance and the ruling left block. This later gave the Green Party the opportunity to support either side. After negotiations the party chose to support the left block, just like it did 1998–2002. Jens Nilsson from the Social Democratic Party is the

mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well a ...

of Östersund and has been so since 1997. Östersunds rådhus

References

External links