1991 Swedish general election

1991 Swedish general election

← 1988 15 September 1991 1994 →
All 349 seats in the Riksdag 175 seats needed for a majority
First party Second party Third party   Leader Ingvar Carlsson Carl Bildt Bengt Westerberg Party Social Democrats Moderate Liberal People's Last election 156 66 44 Seats won 138 80 33 Seat change 18 14 11 Popular vote 2,062,761 1,199,394 499,356 Percentage 37.71% 21.92% 9.13% Swing 5.50pp 3.62pp 3.07pp   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Olof Johansson Alf Svensson Ian Wachtmeister Bert Karlsson Party Centre Christian Democrats New Democracy Last election 42 0 – Seats won 31 26 25 Seat change 11 26 New Popular vote 465,175 390,351 368,281 Percentage 8.50% 7.14% 6.73% Swing 2.80pp 4.20pp New   Seventh party   Leader Lars Werner Party Left Last election 21 Seats won 16 Seat change 5 Popular vote 246,905 Percentage 4.51% Swing 1.33pp
Map of the election, showing the distribution of constituency and levelling seats, as well as the largest political bloc within each constituency.
Prime Minister before election Ingvar Carlsson Social Democrats Elected Prime Minister Carl Bildt Moderate

General elections were held in Sweden on 15 September 1991.^[1] The Swedish Social Democratic Party remained the largest party in the Riksdag, winning 138 of the 349 seats.^[2] However, it was the party's worst showing since 1928 with 37.7% of the vote.^[3]

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, 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 Moderates' 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 falling short of the threshold, meant vast changes to areas yielding wins for the blue bloc. Norrköping, Västerås and Örebro, main urban areas inside the left-wing industrial belt of central Sweden, all voted blue for the first time for generations.^[3] 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 and the surrounding Stockholm County. Led by the strong Moderate vote, Malmö also flipped to a blue plurality, overturning another historical Social Democrat stronghold.