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 15 September 2002, Nohlen, D & Stöver, P (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p1858 alongside

municipal A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the gov ...

and county council elections. 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 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 ...

, winning 144 of the 349 seats.Nohlen & Stöver, p1873 After securing a confidence and supply agreement with the Left Party and the

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as environmentalism and social justice. Green party platforms typically embrace Social democracy, social democratic economic policies and fo ...

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

Göran Persson Hans Göran Persson (; born 20 January 1949) is a Swedish politician who served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1996 to 2006 and leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1996 to 2007. Persson was first elected to the Swedish Parliame ...

was able to remain in his position for a third consecutive term as a minority government. Although the bloc compositions were similar to

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

, the complexions of the centre-right bloc shifted radically. Under new party leader

Bo Lundgren Bo Axel Magnus Lundgren (born 11 July 1947) is a Sweden, Swedish politician who served as the leader of the Moderate Party from 1999 to 2003.Moderates Moderate is an ideological category which entails Centrism, centrist views on a liberal-conservative spectrum. It may also designate a rejection of radical politics, radical or extremism, extreme views, especially in regard to politics and religi ...

lost more than seven percentage points and barely held on as the largest party in its coalition. Only eight municipalities in all of Sweden had the Moderates as the largest party, six of which were in the Stockholm area. The Peoples' Party led by

Lars Leijonborg Lars Erik Ansgar Leijonborg (born 21 November 1949) is a Swedish politician, Minister for Higher Education and Research 2006-2009 and Head of the Ministry of Education and Research 2006–2007. During a ten-year period from 1997 to 2007, he ser ...

, instead more than doubled its parliamentary delegation and received above 13% of the vote. Lundgren resigned in the wake of the election, leading to the selection of future Prime Minister

Fredrik Reinfeldt John Fredrik Reinfeldt (pronounced ; born 4 August 1965) is a Swedish economist, lecturer, former Prime Minister of Sweden from 2006 to 2014 and chairman of the liberal conservative Moderate Party from 2003 to 2015. He was the last rotating Presi ...

as the Moderate leader. Among the four other Riksdag parties, the Christian Democrats and the Left Party both lost ground, whereas the

Centre Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity ...

and Green parties managed to reach the parliamentary threshold of four percentage points. Among minor parties, the Norrbotten Party reached 9.4% of the vote in its

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

, polling above 20% in some inland areas. However, this was not enough to gain a Riksdag seat. The

Sweden Democrats The Sweden Democrats ( , SD ) is a Nationalism, nationalist and Right-wing populism, right-wing populist political party in Sweden founded in 1988. As of 2024, it is the largest member of Sweden's Right-wing politics, right-wing bloc and the sec ...

became the eight largest party for the first time, making sizeable gains and winning more council seats than ever before.

Debates

Results

Seat distribution

By municipality

Image:Sweden.2002.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.2002.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.1998.to.2002.coalition.voting.shift.map.svg, Map showing the voting shifts from the 1998 to the 2002 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.2002.coalition.purple.map.svg, Votes by municipality as a scale from red/Left-wing bloc to blue/Centre-right bloc. Image:Sweden.2002.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.

Debates

Results

Seat distribution

By municipality

References

Further reading