1968 Swedish general election

General elections were held in Sweden on 15 September 1968.[1] Held in the wake of the crushing of the Prague spring, it resulted in a landslide victory for the Social Democratic government and Prime Minister Tage Erlander. It is one of two general elections in Swedish history where a single party received more than half of the vote (the other being the election of 1940). Erlander would resign the following year after an uninterrupted tenure of 23 years as head of government.

1968 Swedish general election

15 September 1968

All 233 seats to the Second Chamber of the Riksdag
117 seats were needed for a majority
  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader Tage Erlander Gunnar Hedlund Sven Wedén
Party Social Democratic Centre People's
Last election 113 36 43
Seats won 125 39 34
Seat change 12 3 9
Popular vote 2,420,242 778,810 688,456
Percentage 50.1% 16.1% 14.3%

  Fourth party Fifth party
 
Leader Yngve Holmberg C.-H. Hermansson
Party Rightist Left-Communist
Last election 33 8
Seats won 32 3
Seat change 1 5
Popular vote 621,031 145,172
Percentage 12.9% 3.0%

PM before election

Tage Erlander
Social Democratic

Elected PM

Tage Erlander
Social Democratic

The Social Democrats had held the office of Prime Minister since 1932 except a three-month "holiday cabinet" in 1936. This was due to the Social Democrats' absolute majority in the First chamber and a steady majority for them in general elections and also at large in municipality and county council elections, of which the latter gave them the majority in the First chamber. When they did not have an absolute majority in the Second chamber the Social Democrats could rely on a passive support from the Communists as the Social Democrats almost always nearly had half of the seats there. The two socialist parties in the Riksdag did not however win a majority in the general elections of 1952 and 1956.

Results

Party Votes % Seats +/–
Swedish Social Democratic Party2,420,27750.1125+12
Centre Party757,21515.739+3
People's Party688,45614.334–9
Rightist Party621,03112.932–1
Left Party Communists145,1723.03–5
Civic Unity[a]82,0821.7
Christian Democratic Unity72,3771.500
Middle Parties[b]41,3070.9
Other parties1,4620.000
Invalid/blank votes32,522
Total4,861,9011002330
Registered voters/turnout5,445,33389.3
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

a Civic Unity was a joint list of the three right-wing parties in Malmö.

b The Middle Parties was a coalition of the Centre Party and People's Party that contested some constituencies.[2]

Popular vote
S
50.12%
C
15.68%
FP
14.26%
H
12.86%
VPK
3.01%
Med-Sam
1.70%
KD
1.50%
Others
0.89%
Parliament seats
S
53.65%
C
16.74%
FP
14.59%
H
13.73%
VPK
1.29%

References

  1. Nohlen, D & Stöver, P (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p1858 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
  2. Nohlen & Stöver, p1861
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.