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 1991.

Dieter Nohlen Dieter Nohlen (born 6 November 1939) is a German academic and political scientist. He currently holds the position of Emeritus Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. An expe ...

& Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p1858 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 138 of the 349 seats.Nohlen & Stöver, p1873 However, it was the party's worst showing since

1928 Events January * January – British bacteriologist Frederick Griffith reports the results of Griffith's experiment, indirectly proving the existence of DNA. * January 1 – Eastern Bloc emigration and defection: Boris Bazhanov, J ...

with 37.7% of the vote. The election was notable due to the rise of a new right-wing populist party named New Democracy which succeeded in securing a parliamentary mandate for the first (and only) time. The four parties of the centre-right coalition (the Centre Party, People's Party,

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 ...

, and Christian Democrats) were allocated a combined total of 171 seats, 17 more than the two left-wing parties' 154, but still fewer than the 175 necessary for a majority. Thus the centre-right bloc was dependent upon New Democracy to secure a parliamentary majority. It was able to do so, and the

' Carl Bildt became Prime Minister. One large factor in the shift between the blocs was that the Christian Democrats managed to reach the 4% threshold by a good margin after many previous attempts. This combined with 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 ...

falling short of the threshold, meant vast changes to areas yielding wins for the blue bloc.

Norrköping Norrköping (; ) is a city in the province of Östergötland in eastern Sweden and the seat of Norrköping Municipality, Östergötland County, about 160 km southwest of the national capital Stockholm, 40 km east of county seat Linköp ...

, Västerås and Örebro, main urban areas inside the left-wing industrial belt of central Sweden, all voted blue for the first time for generations. Even so, they did only assemble pluralities as opposed to majorities in all three. The centre-right bloc also made vast gains in the capital region, the Moderate Party being the largest both in

Stockholm Municipality Stockholm Municipality or the City of Stockholm ( sv, Stockholms kommun or ) is a municipality in Stockholm County in east central Sweden. It has the largest population of the 290 municipalities of the country, but one of the smallest areas, maki ...

and the surrounding

Stockholm County Stockholm County ( sv, Stockholms län, link=no ) is a county or '' län'' (in Swedish) on the Baltic Sea coast of Sweden. It borders Uppsala County and Södermanland County. It also borders Mälaren and the Baltic Sea. The city of Stockholm ...

. Led by the strong Moderate vote, Malmö also flipped to a blue plurality, overturning another historical Social Democrat stronghold. This election was also famous for the performance of the Donald Duck Party, which collected 1,535 votes, enough to make it the 9th largest in Sweden. The

protest party A protest vote (also called a blank, null, spoilt vote, spoiled, or "none of the above" vote) is a vote cast in an election to demonstrate dissatisfaction with the choice of candidates or the current politics, political system. Protest voting take ...

's platform consisted of the demand for "free liquor and wider sidewalks."

Results

Seat distribution

By municipality

Image:Sweden.1991.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.1991.coalition.largest.cart.svg, Cartogram of the map to the left with each municipality rescaled to the number of valid votes cast. Image:Sweden.1988.to.1991.coalition.voting.shift.map.svg, Map showing the voting shifts from the 1988 to the 1991 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.1991.coalition.purple.map.svg, Votes by municipality as a scale from red/Left-wing bloc to blue/Centre-right bloc. Image:Sweden.1991.coalition.purple.cart.svg, 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

{{Swedish elections General elections in Sweden General