General elections were held in Sweden 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 ...
Green Party
A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence.
Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundati ...
,
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier 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. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...
Göran Persson was able to remain in his position in 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 frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...
, 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 Swedish politician. He was the leader of the Moderate Party from 1999 to 2003.Moderates 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 is a common male name in Scandinavian countries.
Origin
''Lars'' means "from the city of Laurentum". Lars is derived from the Latin name Laurentius, which means "from Laurentum" or "crowned with laurel".
A homonymous Etruscan name was ...
, 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 as the Moderate leader.
Among the four other Riksdag parties, the Christian Democrats and the Left Party both lost ground, whereas the Centre and Green parties managed to reach the parliamentary threshold of four percentage points.
Among minor parties, the
Norrbotten Party The Norbotten Party (''Norrbottenspartiet'') was a minor, regional party in Sweden. The base of the party was in the most northern Swedish province, Norrbotten County, and in the local and regional parties, the Kiruna Party and the Norrbotten Healt ...
reached 9.4% of the vote in its
county
A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
, polling above 20% in some inland areas, although this was not enough to gain a Riksdag seat. The
Sweden Democrats
The Sweden Democrats ( sv , Sverigedemokraterna ; SD ) is a nationalist and right-wing populist political party in Sweden. As of 2022, it is the largest member of Sweden's right-wing governing bloc to which it provides confidence and supply ...
became the eight largest party for the first time, making sizeable gains and winning more council seats than ever before.
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 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, Cartogram 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.
General
A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry.
In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". O ...