Swedish general election, 1985

Elections to the Swedish Riksdag held September 15 1985.

Election campaign

At a campaign meeting in Sundsvall on August 22, Minister of social welfare Sten Andersson promised to increase the state pensions as a compensation for the price increases following the devaluation of the krona in 1982. The social democratic government also stressed that it had managed to decrease the budget deficit from 90 billion to 60 billion kronas. The Social Democrats ("Socialdemokraterna") also promised not to increase taxes or lower the quality of the welfare system.

The Centre Party ("Centerpartiet") had a technical cooperation with the Christian Democrats ("Kristdemokraterna"). The Christian Democrats always received fewer votes than the 4 %-threshold for gaining seats to the Riksdag. The cooperation was criticized within the Centre Party. The aim was for both parties to gain votes but in the end, the Centre Party decreased its share of the votes compared to the previous election. The Christian Democrats only gained one seat in parliament for its leader, Alf Svensson.

The political debate was dominated by the Moderate Party ("Moderaterna") and the social democrats. In January 1985, the Moderate Party had proposed in parliament a detailed plan with tax cuts and cuts in spending. The Social Democrats' leader Olof Palme managed to turn this against the Moderate Party by repeating the negative effects this would have on junior soccer teams. In an opinion poll by SIFO in June 1985 the Moderate Party was supported by 30 percent but their support decreased during the campaign.

The LPeople's Party ("Folkpartiet") had chosen Bengt Westerberg as its party leader in October 1983 but he had had trouble getting his message through, not least because of the party's small size in parliament and only receiving a 5.9 percent support in the 1982 election. But in August Westerberg got a public breakthrough as a calm and honest politician compared to the constantly arguing Adelsohn and Palme. In the end, the Liberal People's Party was the big winner of the 1985 election by increasing its support to 14.2 percent.

Results

*¹Christian Democrats had candidates on the lists of the Centre Party. Christian Democrats had one MP elected, Alf Svensson.
*²One source ( [http://www.arbetarmakt.com/nyhetsbrev/nr130.php] ) claims that the Socialist Party got around 18,000 votes.