Swedish general election, 1985

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15 September 1985

1988 →

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

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Olof Palme	Ulf Adelsohn	Bengt Westerberg
Party	Social Democratic	Moderate	People's
Last election	166	86	21
Seats won	159	76	51
Seat change	7	10	30
Popular vote	2,487,551	1,187,335	792,268
Percentage	44.7%	21.3%	14.2%

	Fourth party	Fifth party	Sixth party

Leader	Thorbjörn Fälldin	Lars Werner	Alf Svensson
Party	Centre	Left-Communist	Christian Democrats
Last election	56	20	0
Seats won	43	19	1
Seat change	13	1	1
Popular vote	490,570	298 419	200,688
Percentage	8.8%	5.4%	3.6%

PM before election

Olof Palme
Social Democratic

Elected PM

Olof Palme
Social Democratic

General elections were held in Sweden on 15 September 1985. The Swedish Social Democratic Party remained the largest party in the Riksdag, winning 159 of the 349 seats.

At a campaign meeting in Sundsvall on 22 August, 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 had a technical cooperation with the Christian Democrats. 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 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.

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Wikipedia