Östersund Municipality (; ) is a

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

Jämtland County Jämtland County (, ) is a county or '' län'' in Sweden. It consists of the provinces of Jämtland and Härjedalen, along with minor parts of Hälsingland and Ångermanland, plus two small strips of Lapland and Dalarna. It borders the countie ...

in northern

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

. Its

seat A seat is a place to sit. The term may encompass additional features, such as back, armrest, head restraint but may also refer to concentrations of power in a wider sense (i.e " seat (legal entity)"). See disambiguation. Types of seat The ...

is located in

Östersund Östersund (; ) is an Urban areas in Sweden, urban area (Stad (Sweden), city) in Jämtland in northern Sweden. It is the seat of Östersund Municipality and the capital of Jämtland County. Östersund is located at the shores of Sweden's fifth-larg ...

, 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 a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...

of Östersund with five surrounding rural municipalities.

Localities

There are ten

localities Locality may refer to: * Locality, a historical named location or place in Canada * Locality (association), an association of community regeneration organizations in England * Locality (linguistics) * Locality (settlement) * Suburbs and localitie ...

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

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, borough cou ...

(''

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

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

general election A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from By-election, by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. Gener ...

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 or constituency is an electoral district represented by a single officeholder. It contrasts with a multi-member district, which is represented by multiple officeholders. In some countries, such as Australia and India, ...

. 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 social, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achieving social equality. In modern practice, s ...

. 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, 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 Christian democracy is an ideology inspired by Christian social teaching to respond to the challenges of contemporary society and politics. Christian democracy has drawn mainly from Catholic social teaching and neo-scholasticism, as well a ...

(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 (American English) is the process by which the activities of an organisation, particularly those regarding planning, decision-making, and framing strategies and policies, become concentrated within a particular ...

. 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 environmentalism and social justice. Green party platforms typically embrace Social democracy, social democratic economic policies and fo ...

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

Demographics

This is a demographic table based on Östersund Municipality's electoral districts in the

2022 Swedish general election General elections were held in Sweden on 11 September 2022 to elect the 349 members of the Riksdag who in turn elected the Prime Minister of Sweden. Under the constitution, regional and municipal elections were also held on the same day. The pr ...

sourced from SVT's election platform, in turn taken from SCB official statistics. Residents include everyone registered as living in the district, regardless of age or citizenship status. Valid voters indicate Swedish citizens above the age of 18 who therefore can vote in general elections. Left vote and right vote indicate the result between the two major blocs in said district in the 2022 general election. Employment indicates the share of people between the ages of 20 and 64 who are working taxpayers. Foreign background is defined as residents either born abroad or with two parents born outside of Sweden. Median income is the received monthly income through either employment, capital gains or social grants for the median adult above 20, also including pensioners in

Swedish kronor The krona (; plural: ''kronor''; currency sign, sign: kr; ISO 4217, code: SEK) is the currency of Sweden. Both the ISO code "SEK" and currency sign "kr" are in common use for the krona; the former precedes or follows the value, the latter usual ...

. The section about college graduates indicates any degree accumulated after high school. In total there were 49,635 Swedish citizens of voting age resident in the municipality. 58.5% voted for the left coalition and 40.2% for the right coalition. Indicators are in percentage points except population totals and income.

References

External links