Swedish general election, 1982

← 1979

19 September 1982

1985 →

All 349 seats to the Riksdag
175 seats were needed for a majority

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Olof Palme	Ulf Adelsohn	Thorbjörn Fälldin
Party	Social Democratic	Moderate	Centre
Last election	154	73	64
Seats won	166	86	56
Seat change	12	13	8
Popular vote	2,533,250	1,313,337	859,618
Percentage	45.6%	23.6%	15.5%

	Fourth party	Fifth party

Leader	Ola Ullsten	Lars Werner
Party	People's	Left-Communist
Last election	38	20
Seats won	21	20
Seat change	17	0
Popular vote	327 770	308,899
Percentage	5.9%	5.6%

PM before election

Thorbjörn Fälldin
Centre

Elected PM

Olof Palme
Social Democratic

Thorbjörn Fälldin
Centre

Olof Palme
Social Democratic

General elections were held in Sweden on 19 September 1982. They saw the return of the Swedish Social Democratic Party to power after six years in opposition, the longest period in opposition by the Social Democrats since the 1910s. The center-right coalition of Thorbjörn Fälldin had earlier suffered a loss upon the breakup of the government in 1981, the year before the election, when the rightist Moderate Party chose to withdraw from the government, protesting against the centrist tax policies of the Fälldin government. After regaining power, socialist leader Olof Palme succeeded in being elected Prime Minister again, having earlier held power between 1969 and 1976. He would retain this position successfully until his assassination in 1986.

Votes by municipality. The municipalities are the color of the party that got the most votes within the coalition that won relative majority.

Cartogram of the map to the left with each municipality rescaled to the number of valid votes cast.

Map showing the voting shifts from the 1979 to the 1982 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.

Votes by municipality as a scale from red/Left-wing bloc to blue/Centre-right bloc.

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.

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