General elections were held in

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 ...

on 16 September 1979.

Dieter Nohlen Dieter Nohlen (born 6 November 1939) is a German academic and political scientist. He currently holds the position of Emeritus Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. An ex ...

& Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p1858 Although the

Swedish Social Democratic Party The Swedish Social Democratic Party, formally the Swedish Social Democratic Workers' Party ( , S or SAP), usually referred to as The Social Democrats ( ), is a social democratic political party in Sweden. The party is member of the Progressiv ...

remained the largest party, winning 154 of the 349 seats in the

Riksdag The Riksdag ( , ; also or , ) is the parliament and the parliamentary sovereignty, supreme decision-making body of the Kingdom of Sweden. Since 1971, the Riksdag has been a unicameral parliament with 349 members (), elected proportional rep ...

,Nohlen & Stöver, p1873 the liberal

interim government A provisional government, also called an interim government, an emergency government, a transitional government or provisional leadership, is a temporary government formed to manage a period of transition, often following state collapse, revolut ...

of Ola Ullsten was succeeded by another centre-right coalition government composed of the People's Party, the

Moderate Party The Moderate Party ( , , M), commonly referred to as the Moderates ( ), is a Liberal conservatism, liberal-conservative* * * * * List of political parties in Sweden, political party in Sweden. The party generally supports tax cuts, the free ma ...

and the Centre Party, led by Centre Party leader Thorbjörn Fälldin. The three parties together won 175 seats, compared to the 174 won by the Social Democrats and

Communists Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, d ...

. It was the only time that non-socialist parties retained power in an election between 1928 and 2010. The Moderates dramatically increased their representation in the Riksdag, becoming the largest party of the non-socialist bloc, a position they maintained until

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

. Despite the unexpected victory, the coalition split in 1981 when the Moderates withdrew support in protest at Fälldin's tax policies, which they viewed as "too

leftist Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social hierarchies. Left-wing politi ...

". Despite not being the leader of the coalition party with the most seats, Fälldin had been the designate Prime Minister since his earlier resignation in 1978, upon disagreement over the question of

nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by ...

Debates

Results

Seat distribution

By municipality

Image:Sweden.1979.coalition.largest.map.svg, Votes by municipality. The municipalities are the color of the party that got the most votes ''within'' the coalition that won relative majority. Image:Sweden.1979.coalition.largest.cart.svg,

Cartogram A cartogram (also called a value-area map or an anamorphic map, the latter common among German-speakers) is a thematic map of a set of features (countries, provinces, etc.), in which their geographic size is altered to be Proportionality (math ...

of the map to the left with each municipality rescaled to the number of valid votes cast. Image:Sweden.1976.to.1979.coalition.voting.shift.map.svg, Map showing the voting shifts from the 1976 to the 1979 election. Darker blue indicates a municipality voted more towards the parties that formed the centre-right bloc. Darker red indicates a municipality voted more towards the parties that form the left-wing bloc. Image:Sweden.1979.coalition.purple.map.svg, Votes by municipality as a scale from red/Left-wing bloc to blue/Centre-right bloc. Image:Sweden.1979.coalition.purple.cart.svg,

of vote with each municipality rescaled in proportion to number of valid votes cast. Deeper blue represents a relative majority for the centre-right coalition, brighter red represents a relative majority for the left-wing coalition.

References

{{Swedish elections General elections in Sweden

General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...

Election and referendum articles with incomplete results