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 17 September 2006, to elect members to 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 ...

, the Swedish national legislature. All 349 seats were up for election: 310 fixed seats in 29

constituencies An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...

and 39 adjustment seats, used to ensure that parties have representation in the Riksdag proportional to their share of the national vote. The electoral system used was semi-open list

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...

using the

Sainte-Laguë method The Webster method, also called the Sainte-Laguë method (), is a highest averages apportionment method for allocating seats in a parliament among federal states, or among parties in a party-list proportional representation system. The Sainte- ...

of allocating seats. Elections for

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 ...

and

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 ...

councils were also held on the same day.

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 ...

from 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 ...

was able to form a majority government together with the Centre Party, Liberal People's Party and the Christian Democrats following the election. The

Social Democrats Social democracy is a social, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achieving social equality. In modern practice, s ...

were ousted after twelve years in power. It was the country's first majority government since the second Fälldin cabinet fell in 1981. Reinfeldt reached out to working-class votes in the re-branding as the 'New Moderates', which resulted in sizeable gains in historically left-wing locations in densely populated areas. As a result, several municipalities that had never voted blue before in Stockholm County flipped. This, combined with a landslide overall win in the capital region as a whole and strong showings in

Scania Scania ( ), also known by its native name of Skåne (), is the southernmost of the historical provinces of Sweden, provinces () of Sweden. Located in the south tip of the geographical region of Götaland, the province is roughly conterminous w ...

tipped the balance in favour of the Alliance. The centre-right bloc also flipped the crucial populous municipalities

Gothenburg Gothenburg ( ; ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, it is the gub ...

Linköping Linköping ( , ) is a city in southern Sweden, with around 167,000 inhabitants as of 2024. It is the seat of Linköping Municipality and the capital of Östergötland County. Linköping is also the episcopal see of the Diocese of Linköping (Chu ...

Uppsala Uppsala ( ; ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the capital of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019. Loc ...

and

Västerås Västerås () is a city in central Sweden on the shore of Mälaren, Lake Mälaren in the province of Västmanland, west of Stockholm. The city had a population of 127,799 at the end of 2019, out of the municipal total of 158,653, over 100,000 mo ...

. The Social Democrats recorded around 35% of the overall support, which was the party's worst showing in the post-war era. Although the red-green parties received a higher proportion of the vote than in the

1991 It was the final year of the Cold War, which had begun in 1947. During the year, the Soviet Union Dissolution of the Soviet Union, collapsed, leaving Post-soviet states, fifteen sovereign republics and the Commonwealth of Independent State ...

hung parliament A hung parliament is a term used in legislatures primarily under the Westminster system (typically employing Majoritarian representation, majoritarian electoral systems) to describe a situation in which no single political party or pre-existing ...

loss, the coalition fell short of a majority by seven seats, or two percentage points of the popular vote. The Alliance did not reach 50% of the vote, courtesy of several minor parties gathering up 5.67% of the overall vote. This was the final election before 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 ...

entered the Riksdag, with the party getting close to three percent of the vote, falling short by just above one percentage point. The election also saw the party get above 10% in Bjuv Municipality in its Scanian heartlands and above the parliamentary threshold in the country's five southernmost constituencies.

Campaign

The campaigning for the 2006 election began early, as the opposition decided to present itself as a viable alternative government by forming an alliance: Alliance for Sweden. This alliance was negotiated at a meeting held in the village of Högfors, home to the chairman of the Centre Party, Maud Olofsson. The meeting ended on 31 August 2004 with the presentation of a joint declaration outlining the principles under which the four parties intended to run in the election. One year later a similar meeting was held at Bankeryd, home of Göran Hägglund, leader of the Christian Democrats. See

Alliance for Sweden The Alliance (, from 2004-10 the ''Alliance for Sweden,'' ), was a Centre-right politics, centre-right liberal-conservative political alliance in Sweden. The Alliance consisted of the four centre-right list of political parties in Sweden, politic ...

for further information. The Alliance enjoyed a leading position for over a year over the red-green parties, according to most polls. However the gap between the two blocs (s, v, and mp are assumed to work together) began to close rapidly in January 2006, and the red-green parties took the lead in May 2006; indeed they were ahead of the Alliance in every poll conducted in May and June. However, there was a late shift in opinion back to the Alliance during the summer: in mid-August all polls showed the Alliance leading the red-green parties comfortably.

Unemployment

The Social Democrat government's perceived failure to reduce unemployment was a major issue in the campaign, especially considering the good performance of the Swedish economy (when compared with that of the rest of Europe). The opposition also argued that "real" unemployment was much higher than the official figure of 4.8% (as of May 2006). They quoted a figure of 1,037,000 (or 17.9% of the

labour force In macroeconomics, the workforce or labour force is the sum of people either working (i.e., the employed) or looking for work (i.e., the unemployed): \text = \text + \text Those neither working in the marketplace nor looking for work are out ...

in January 2006) for those who are "outside the

labour market Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labou ...

because they do not have a job or are studying". If those who are "wholly or partially outside the labour market" are included then the figure rises to 1,700,000. This gloomy view of the unemployment situation was raised by Jan Edling, a former economist for the

Swedish Trade Union Confederation The Swedish Trade Union Confederation ( ; literally "The National Organisation in Sweden"), commonly referred to as LO (), is a national trade union centre, an umbrella organisation for fourteen Swedish trade unions that organise mainly "blue-c ...

(''LO''). However, compared with other OECD countries Sweden has a low "broad unemployment", as was pointed out by the Green Party's Peter Eriksson in the debate.

proposed to address the problem by cutting

income tax An income tax is a tax imposed on individuals or entities (taxpayers) in respect of the income or profits earned by them (commonly called taxable income). Income tax generally is computed as the product of a tax rate times the taxable income. Tax ...

for the lowest income earners (by increasing the tax-free allowance), cutting the

payroll tax Payroll taxes are taxes imposed on employers or employees. They are usually calculated as a percentage of the salaries that employers pay their employees. By law, some payroll taxes are the responsibility of the employee and others fall on the ...

(and abolishing it for parts of the

service sector The tertiary sector of the economy, generally known as the service sector, is the third of the three economic sectors in the three-sector model (also known as the economic cycle). The others are the primary sector (raw materials) and the ...

), and making wages paid for household work tax-deductible. Critics of the proposed tax reforms said that, because the cuts would be funded by reducing

unemployment benefit Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is the proportion of people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for Work (hu ...

and

sick pay Sick leave (or paid sick days or sick pay) is paid time off from work that workers can use to stay home to address their health needs without losing pay. It differs from paid vacation time or time off work to deal with personal matters, because ...

, they would be harming the most needy in society rather than helping them as Alliance for Sweden claimed. In addition the Centre Party proposed a special youth

contract of employment An employment contract or contract of employment is a kind of contract used in labour law to attribute rights and responsibilities between parties to a bargain. The contract is between an "employee" and an "employer". It has arisen out of the old m ...

for those aged under 26, allowing their term of employment to be ended by their employer up to two years after they begin work. This controversial proposal (not adopted by the Alliance as a whole) was intended to increase youth employment by making taking on new employees less risky for the employer, but it was criticised by the red-green parties as reducing

job security Job security is the probability that an individual will keep their job; a job with a high level of security is such that a person with the job would have a small chance of losing it. Many factors threaten job security: globalization, outsourcing ...

for the young. A similar contract introduced by the

French government The Government of France (, ), officially the Government of the French Republic (, ), exercises Executive (government), executive power in France. It is composed of the Prime Minister of France, prime minister, who is the head of government, ...

(the '' Contrat première embauche'') caused demonstrations and

riots A riot or mob violence is a form of civil disorder commonly characterized by a group lashing out in a violent public disturbance against authority, property, or people. Riots typically involve destruction of property, public or private. The p ...

against the legislation across

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. In a debate article in ''

Göteborgs-Posten (), abbreviated GP, is a major Swedish language, Swedish-language daily newspaper published in Gothenburg, Sweden. History and profile was first published in 1813, but ceased publication in 1822. It re-appeared in 1850. Publication seven day ...

'' on 21 March 2006, Wanja Lundby-Wedin,

Chairperson The chair, also chairman, chairwoman, or chairperson, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a Board of directors, board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by ...

of ''LO'', wrote:

" aud Olofsson'snew proposal to abolish job security for the young will not result in more jobs. It will only lead to increased insecurity and an even larger exclusion... More than half of youths under 25 who work already have an insecure job; a time-limited job of some sort. This is most usual among our young female members. The most insecure jobs, 'need-employment' or the so-called 'phone and run
locum A locum, or locum tenens, is a person who temporarily fulfills the duties of another; the term is especially used for physicians or clergy. For example, a ''locum tenens physician'' is a physician who works in the place of the regular physician. ...
' is entirely on the employer's terms. Every morning many people sit and wait for their employer to ring. Am I needed today or not?".

Olofsson replied two days later in the same newspaper:

"What ''LOs Chairperson has not understood is that those youths who already have a job are not covered by our proposal. It does however give a new opportunity for the 146,000 youths who are wholly or partially living in the exclusion the Social Democrats have created... One of the main reasons why companies don't take on new staff is that the risk is too large. If the gamble doesn't pay off then the costs are too great. By lowering the threshold for job creation we are convinced that many youths will be able to take their first steps onto a labour market that they today have never been able to set foot on. We are equally convinced that the great majority of these youths will show their employers that they were right to dare to employ them".

A survey carried out by the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise (''Svenskt Näringsliv'') indicated that 41% of Swedish companies believe that such a contract would increase their willingness to hire young people "to a great extent" and that 51% believe that it would increase it "to a certain extent". 7% of those surveyed said that they did not think that they would be more willing to hire youth if the contract was to become available.

Computer break-in by Liberal People's Party members

On 4 September 2006, only two weeks before the general election, the Social Democratic Party reported to the police a computer break-in into its internal network. It has been reported that members of the Liberal People's Party copied sensitive information, not yet officially released, on at least two occasions for the purpose of counter-attacking Social Democratic political propositions. On 5 September the Liberal Party Secretary voluntarily resigned. After the break-in, investigations were opened against leading members of the Liberal People's Party under suspicion of criminal activity relating to the 4 September computer infringement affair.

Opinion polls

The charts below show the results of pre-election polls conducted by the five major polling institutes in Sweden. TEMO has a summary of all polls conducted since the election in 2002, and is therefore cited as the reference for each poll.

Temo

Sifo

Demoskop

Skop

Ruab

Debates

Results

The final results were published on 21 September 2006 by the Swedish Election Authority (''Valmyndigheten''). Apart from separating the minor parties, there were no big changes to the preliminary count from the election night. 6,892,009 people were eligible to vote in the election. The results are here compared with the 2002 election. There were 5,551,278 valid ballots cast, a turnout of 82%. Three hours after the polls closed, the result was clear enough for

leader

to declare himself the victor and for

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 ...

to announce his resignation as

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 ...

and as leader of the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Form ...

. The four

centre-right Centre-right politics is the set of right-wing politics, right-wing political ideologies that lean closer to the political centre. It is commonly associated with conservatism, Christian democracy, liberal conservatism, and conservative liberalis ...

parties of

formed, as expected, a government with Fredrik Reinfeldt as Prime Minister. The Speaker had asked Reinfeldt to begin this formation on 19 September but, as is usual, requested the Cabinet of Göran Persson to stay on as a

caretaker government A caretaker government, also known as a caretaker regime, is a temporary ''ad hoc'' government that performs some governmental duties and functions in a country until a regular government is elected or formed. Depending on specific practice, it co ...

until the Riksdag formally elected a new prime minister. The newly elected

convened on 2 October and the government was presented on 6 October. The election result is historic in being the worst result for the Social Democrats ever in a general election with

universal suffrage Universal suffrage or universal franchise ensures the right to vote for as many people bound by a government's laws as possible, as supported by the " one person, one vote" principle. For many, the term universal suffrage assumes the exclusion ...

(introduced in 1921) and the best result for the Moderates since 1928. Minor parties, that are not represented in the Riksdag, got a total of 5.7% of the votes, which was an increase of 2.6

percentage point A percentage point or percent point is the unit (measurement), unit for the difference (mathematics), arithmetic difference between two percentages. For example, moving up from 40 percent to 44 percent is an increase of 4 percentage points (altho ...

s, compared to the 2002 election. Behind this increase lay a great success for the

, gaining 2.9% (+1.5 percentage points) and thus surpassing the limit (2.5%) for gaining governmental financial support for the next four years. Two new parties, Feminist Initiative (0.7%) and the

Pirate Party Pirate Party is a label adopted by various Political party, political parties worldwide that share a set of values and policies focused on Civil and political rights, civil rights in the digital age. The fundamental principles of Pirate Partie ...

(0.6%), also contributed to the increase. Of the 349 elected Riksdag members, 164 (or 47%) were women.

Seat distribution

By municipality

File:Sweden.2006.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. File:Sweden.2006.coalition.purple.map.svg, Votes by municipality as a scale from red/Red-green bloc to blue/Alliance for Sweden. File:Sweden.2006.coalition.purple.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 vote with each municipality rescaled in proportion to the number of valid votes. Deeper blue represents a relative majority for Alliance for Sweden, brighter red represents a relative majority for the Red-Green bloc. File:Sweden.2002.to.2006.coalition.voting.shift.map.svg, Map showing the voting shifts from the 2002 to the 2006 election. Darker blue indicates a municipality voted more towards the parties that form Alliance for Sweden. Darker red indicates a municipality voted more towards the parties that form the red-green bloc.

Aftermath

The

minority government A minority government, minority cabinet, minority administration, or a minority parliament is a government and cabinet formed in a parliamentary system when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in ...

attempted, and failed, to gain enough seats to form a

majority government A majority government is a government by one or more governing parties that hold an absolute majority of seats in a legislature. Such a government can consist of one party that holds a majority on its own, or be a coalition government of multi ...

, to continue as a minority or to govern in a red-green

coalition government A coalition government, or coalition cabinet, is a government by political parties that enter into a power-sharing arrangement of the executive. Coalition governments usually occur when no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an ...

. His party had been in power since the 1994 election, and Persson had been

since 1996. The Social Democrats before the election had an 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 ...

that gave them an influence on government policy in exchange for their support. However, both the Left Party and the Green Party insisted that any red-green government formed after the election would need to include them in a coalition.There will be Green ministers
, ''The Local'', May 22, 2006 The four

parties – The Moderate Party (m), The Liberal People's Party (fp), The Christian Democrats (kd), and The Centre Party (c) – united in

succeeded in gaining enough seats to form a

. The four parties (formerly in opposition) had presented a joint election manifesto (although c, fp, and kd still had individual manifestos). Their

candidate A candidate, or nominee, is a prospective recipient of an award or honor, or a person seeking or being considered for some kind of position. For example, one can be a candidate for membership in a group (sociology), group or election to an offic ...

for Prime Minister was the

leader,

References

External links

Guide to the Swedish Election 2006
–

The Local ''The Local'' is a multi-regional, European digital news publisher targeting expats, labour migrants and second home owners. It has nine local editions: The Local Austria, The Local Denmark, The Local France, The Local Germany, The Local Italy, ...

Briefingroom: The insider's guide to... Swedish politics
–

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NSD: European Election Database – Sweden
publishes regional level election data; allows for comparisons of election results, 1991–2006 {{Swedish elections General elections in Sweden

General election A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from By-election, by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. Gener ...