1973 Swedish general election

General elections were held in Sweden on 16 September 1973.[1] The Social Democratic remained the largest party, winning 156 of the 350 seats.

1973 Swedish general election

16 September 1973

All 350 seats to the Riksdag
176 were needed for a majority
  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader Olof Palme Thorbjörn Fälldin Gösta Bohman
Party Social Democratic Centre Moderate
Last election 163 71 41
Seats won 156 90 51
Seat change 7 19 10
Popular vote 2,247,727 1,295,246 737,584
Percentage 43.6% 25.1% 14.3%
Swing 1.8% 5.2% 2.8%

  Fourth party Fifth party
 
Leader Gunnar Helén C.-H. Hermansson
Party People's Left-Communist
Last election 58 17
Seats won 34 19
Seat change 24 2
Popular vote 486,028 274,929
Percentage 9.4% 5.3%
Swing 6.8% 0.6%

PM before election

Olof Palme
Social Democratic

Elected PM

Olof Palme
Social Democratic

For most of the campaign, the opposition parties had led the socialist parties in the polls. It has been speculated that several events influenced the outcome of the election in favour of the government: the death of King Gustaf VI Adolf the previous day, the Norrmalmstorg robbery and the 1973 Chilean coup d'état. Palme had delivered an impassioned speech on Salvador Allende's legacy on the eve of the election, in which he praised the democratic system.

The election instead produced a draw, with the socialist and liberal-conservative blocs each winning 175 seats. Since the opposition could not pass a motion of no confidence against Palme's government, he was able to remain in power. In order to pass legislation the Social Democrats had to draw lots or seek support from the opposition. To prevent this scenario from reoccurring, the number of seats in the Riksdag was adjusted to an odd number for subsequent elections. In the popular vote, while winning an equal number of seats the socialist bloc won 2,522,656 votes to the 2,518,858 for the liberal-conservative bloc, a net difference of 3,798 votes or 48.80 % versus 48.73 %, although the seats ended up being shared equally becaused of the narrow margin.

Results

There were 5,160,146 valid ballots cast in the election. Blank or invalid ballots were not counted towards the results.

Party Votes % Seats +/–
Swedish Social Democratic Party2,247,72743.6156–7
Centre Party1,295,24625.190+19
Moderate Party737,58414.351+10
People's Party486,0289.434–24
Left Party Communists274,9295.319+2
Christian Democratic Unity90,3881.800
Communist Party of Sweden18,9230.400
Communist League Marxist-Leninist (Revolutionaries)8,0140.20New
Other parties1,3070.000
Invalid/blank votes8,850
Total5,168,9961003500
Registered voters/turnout5,690,33390.8
Source: Nohlen & Stöver
Popular vote
S
43.56%
C
25.10%
M
14.29%
FP
9.42%
VPK
5.33%
KD
1.75%
Others
0.55%
Parliament seats
S
44.57%
C
25.27%
M
14.57%
FP
9.71%
VPK
5.43%

By municipality

References

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