South Australian state election, 2002

← 1997

9 February 2002 (2002-02-09)

2006 →

All 47 seats in the South Australian House of Assembly
24 seats were needed for a majority
11 (of the 22) seats in the South Australian Legislative Council

	First party	Second party

Leader	Mike Rann	Rob Kerin
Party	Labor	Liberal
Leader since	5 November 1994	22 October 2001
Leader's seat	Ramsay	Frome
Last election	21 seats	23 seats
Seats won	23 seats	20 seats
Seat change	2	3
Percentage	49.1%	50.9%
Swing	0.6%	0.6%

Premier before election

Rob Kerin
Liberal

Resulting Premier

Mike Rann
Labor

Rob Kerin
Liberal

Mike Rann
Labor

State elections were held in South Australia on 9 February 2002. All 47 seats in the South Australian House of Assembly were up for election. The incumbent Liberal Party of Australia led by Premier of South Australia Rob Kerin was defeated by the Australian Labor Party led by Leader of the Opposition Mike Rann.

Independents: Rory McEwen, Bob Such, Peter Lewis

This was the first election since Labor narrowly lost as opposition in the 1997 election, doing much better than most analysts predicted, forcing the Liberals to minority government after their comprehensive loss in the 1993 election where Labor were reduced to just ten seats. Coming into the 2002 election, the Liberal Government had faced a number of scandals including the Motorola affair, over which Premier John Olsen was forced to resign. He was succeeded by Rob Kerin, who had only six months to govern before the election was called.

Labor won two seats from the Liberals, the districts of Adelaide (Jane Lomax-Smith) and Colton (Paul Caica). This gave Labor 23 seats, Liberals 20 seats, SA Nationals one seat, and three seats to independents. In order to form majority government, a party needed 24 seats out of 47. Most analysts expected Kerin to form a minority government with the support of all four of the crossbench.

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