2014 Swedish general election

2014 Swedish general election

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All 349 seats in the Riksdag 175 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	85.8% (1.2 pp)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Stefan Löfven Fredrik Reinfeldt Jimmie Åkesson Party Social Democrats Moderate Sweden Democrats Alliance Red-Greens The Alliance – Last election 30.7%, 112 seats 30.1%, 107 seats 5.7%, 20 seats Seats won 113 84 49 Seat change 1 23 29 Popular vote 1,932,711 1,453,517 801,178 Percentage 31.0% 23.3% 12.9% Swing 0.3 pp 6.8 pp 7.2 pp   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Gustav Fridolin Åsa Romson Annie Lööf Jonas Sjöstedt Party Green Centre Left Alliance Red-Greens The Alliance Red-Greens Last election 7.3%, 25 seats 6.6%, 23 seats 5.6%, 19 seats Seats won 25 22 21 Seat change 0 1 2 Popular vote 429,275 380,937 356,331 Percentage 6.9% 6.1% 5.7% Swing 0.4 pp 0.5 pp 0.1 pp   Seventh party Eighth party   Leader Jan Björklund Göran Hägglund Party Liberals Christian Democrats Alliance The Alliance The Alliance Last election 7.1%, 24 seats 5.6%, 19 seats Seats won 19 16 Seat change 5 3 Popular vote 337,773 284,806 Percentage 5.4% 4.6% Swing 1.7 pp 1.0 pp
Largest party within each constituency and municipality Distribution of constituency and levelling seats and largest political bloc within each constituency
Prime Minister before election Fredrik Reinfeldt Moderate Prime Minister after election Stefan Löfven Social Democrats

General elections were held in Sweden on 14 September 2014 to elect all 349 seats in the Riksdag, alongside elections for the 21 county councils, and 290 municipal assemblies.

The centre-right Alliance for Sweden coalition (comprising the Moderate Party, Liberal People's Party, Centre Party, and Christian Democrats) sought a third term in government. In contrast to the previous election, the three largest parties on the left (the Social Democrats, Green Party, and Left Party) ran independent campaigns, as did the far-right^[1] Sweden Democrats. The left-wing party, Feminist Initiative, did not pass the 4% threshold.

The election result saw the largest three parties on the left outpoll the Alliance for Sweden, with the two blocs respectively winning 159 and 141 seats. The Sweden Democrats doubled their support and won the remaining 49 seats. The party's biggest gain came from gaining about the same number of the vote share as the Moderate Party lost but also made strong inroads into traditionally red municipalities in the central region of Svealand. The Sweden Democrats also became the largest party in two rural municipalities in Scania in the party's southern heartlands.^[2][3] Fredrik Reinfeldt, the incumbent prime minister, lost his bid for a third term. On 3 October, he was replaced by Stefan Löfven, who formed a minority government consisting of the Social Democrats and Greens. With the result being a hung parliament, this led to the December Agreement to allow the red-green government to pass its budgets after a government crisis later in the autumn.

The leftist parties became the largest courtesy of the collapse of the Alliance vote share into the Sweden Democrat fold, rather than making any sizeable gains. As a result, very few counties returned other results than hung parliament delegations, even historical Social Democratic strongholds such as Blekinge, Dalarna, Södermanland and Västmanland saw the red-greens failed to secure an outright majority in spite of the election win.^[4] The 138 seats for the government (37 short of a majority), made it the cabinet with the lowest seat share in Swedish history to begin a term.