Moderate Party

This article is about the centre-right political party in Sweden. For other uses, see Moderate Party (disambiguation).

Moderate Party
Moderata samlingspartiet
AbbreviationM
ChairpersonUlf Kristersson
SecretaryKarin Enström
Parliamentary group leaderMattias Karlsson
Founded17 October 1904; 120 years ago (1904-10-17)
HeadquartersBlasieholmsgatan 4 A, Norrmalm, Stockholm
Student wingModerate Students (official)
Confederation of Swedish Conservative and Liberal Students (unofficial)
Youth wingModerate Youth League
LGBT wingOpen Moderates
Membership (2023)Decrease 46,501[1]
IdeologyLiberal conservatism
Political positionCentre-right
European affiliationEuropean People's Party
European Parliament groupEuropean People's Party Group
International affiliationInternational Democracy Union
Nordic affiliationConservative Group
Colours
  •   Dark blue (official)[a]
  •   Light blue
  •   Sky blue (customary)
SloganSäkrare, grönare, friare ('Safer, Greener, Freer')[2]
Riksdag
68 / 349
European Parliament
4 / 21
County councils[3]
328 / 1,720
Municipal councils[3]
2,584 / 12,614
Website
moderaterna.se Edit this at Wikidata

The Moderate Party (Swedish: Moderata samlingspartiet [mʊdɛˈrɑ̌ːta ˈsâmːlɪŋspaˌʈiːɛt] ⓘ,[4] lit. 'Moderate Coalition Party', M), commonly referred to as the Moderates (Swedish: Moderaterna [mʊdɛˈrɑ̌ːtɛɳa] ⓘ), is a liberal-conservative[5] political party in Sweden. The party generally supports tax cuts, the free market, civil liberties and economic liberalism.[6] Globally, it is a full member of the International Democracy Union[7] and the European People's Party.[8]

The party was founded in 1904 as the General Electoral League (Allmänna valmansförbundet [ˈâlːmɛnːa ˈvɑ̂ːlmansfœrˌbɵndɛt] ⓘ) by a group of conservatives in the Riksdag, the Swedish parliament. The party was later known as The Right (Högern [ˈhø̌ːɡɛɳ] ⓘ; 1938–1952) and Right Party (Högerpartiet [ˈhø̂ːɡɛrpaˌʈiːɛt] ⓘ; 1952–1969).[9] During this time, the party was usually called the Conservative Party outside of Sweden.

After holding minor posts in centre-right governments, the Moderates eventually became the leading opposition party to the Swedish Social Democratic Party and since then those two parties have dominated Swedish politics. After the 1991 Swedish general election, party leader Carl Bildt formed a minority government, the first administration since 1930 to be headed by a member of the party, which lasted three years. The party returned to government under leader and Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, after the 2006 and 2010 general elections. In 2010, the party was the leading member of the Alliance, a centre-right coalition, along with the Centre Party (C), the Christian Democrats (KD) and the Liberal People's Party (L), and obtained its best result ever (30.1%), despite the coalition not being able to obtain majority.[10]

The current chairman of the party, Ulf Kristersson, was elected at a special party congress on 1 October 2017, following Anna Kinberg Batra's sudden resignation. Kinberg Batra had replaced Reinfeldt, Prime Minister from 2006 to 2014. Under Reinfeldt's leadership, the party moved more towards the centre.[11] Under Kristersson's leadership, the party moved back to the right and opened up to the Sweden Democrats (SD) following the 2018 Swedish general election.[12] Having formed in late 2021 an informal right-wing alliance with SD and former Alliance members, KD and L, with Kristersson as the prime ministerial candidate, the right-wing bloc obtained a narrow win in the 2022 Swedish general election.[13][14]

  1. ^ "Medlemsras för Liberalerna – störst tapp bland riksdagspartierna". SVT Nyheter (in Swedish). 13 October 2024. Retrieved 13 October 2024.
  2. ^ "Säkrare, grönare, friare – hundratals moderater utvecklar politiken". Moderaterna (in Swedish). 1 February 2023. Archived from the original on 10 June 2023. Retrieved 10 June 2023.
  3. ^ a b "Rådata och statistik". Valmyndigheten (in Swedish). 8 March 2024. Archived from the original on 11 March 2021. Retrieved 8 March 2024.
  4. ^ "The Moderate Youth League". Moderata Ungdomsförbundet (MUF). Archived from the original on 15 May 2021. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
  5. ^ *Nordsieck, Wolfram (2018). "Sweden". Parties and Elections in Europe. Archived from the original on 26 December 2018. Retrieved 31 August 2018.
  6. ^ Klaus Misgeld; Karl Molin (2010). Creating Social Democracy: A Century of the Social Democratic Labor Party in Sweden. Penn State Press. p. 430. ISBN 978-0-271-04344-9.
  7. ^ "Member Parties". Archived from the original on 1 July 2014. Retrieved 2013-08-27.
  8. ^ "Member Parties". Archived from the original on 4 May 2016. Retrieved 25 May 2016.
  9. ^ "Det konservativa partiet gick bakåt ända fram till 1950-talet, nu med namnet Högern (1934–52) och Högerpartiet (1952–69)." which translates approximately to "The conservative party decreased all the way until the 1950s, now under the name The Right (1934-52) and The Right (Wing) Party (1952-69)" - at [1]
  10. ^ Pollard, Niklas; Shanley, Mia (19 September 2010). "Centre-right wins Swedish vote but short of majority". Reuters. Retrieved 18 September 2022.
  11. ^ Tandstad, Bent (18 September 2006). "Ein ny æra i svensk politikk". NRK. Archived from the original on 25 October 2012. Retrieved 14 July 2010.
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference Milne 2019 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ "Swedish PM resigns as right-wing parties win vote". BBC News. 14 September 2022. Archived from the original on 14 September 2022. Retrieved 14 September 2022.
  14. ^ "Sweden election: PM Magdalena Andersson concedes victory to right-wing opposition". Deutsche Welle. 14 September 2022. Archived from the original on 14 September 2022. Retrieved 14 September 2022.


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