| Country: | Sweden |
| Type: | parliamentary |
| Previous Election: | 1991 Swedish general election |
| Previous Year: | 1991 |
| Next Election: | 1998 Swedish general election |
| Next Year: | 1998 |
| Seats For Election: | All 349 seats in the Riksdag |
| Majority Seats: | 175 |
| Election Date: | 18 September 1994 |
| Image1: | Ingvar Carlsson.jpg |
| Leader1: | Ingvar Carlsson |
| Party1: | Swedish Social Democratic Party |
| Last Election1: | 138 |
| Seats1: | 161 |
| Seat Change1: | 23 |
| Popular Vote1: | 2,513,905 |
| Percentage1: | 45.25% |
| Swing1: | 7.54pp |
| Leader2: | Carl Bildt |
| Party2: | Moderate Party |
| Last Election2: | 80 |
| Seats2: | 80 |
| Seat Change2: | 0 |
| Popular Vote2: | 1,243,253 |
| Percentage2: | 22.38% |
| Swing2: | 0.46pp |
| Image3: | Olof Johansson2.jpg |
| Leader3: | Olof Johansson |
| Party3: | Centre Party (Sweden) |
| Popular Vote3: | 425,153 |
| Percentage3: | 7.65% |
| Seats3: | 27 |
| Last Election3: | 31 |
| Seat Change3: | 4 |
| Swing3: | 0.85pp |
| Image4: | Bengt Westerberg2.jpg |
| Leader4: | Bengt Westerberg |
| Party4: | Liberal People's |
| Popular Vote4: | 399,556 |
| Percentage4: | 7.19% |
| Seats4: | 26 |
| Last Election4: | 33 |
| Seat Change4: | 7 |
| Swing4: | 1.94pp |
| Image5: | Gudrun Schyman - 16 April 2009 - 1 cropped.jpg |
| Leader5: | Gudrun Schyman |
| Party5: | Left Party (Sweden) |
| Popular Vote5: | 342,988 |
| Percentage5: | 6.17% |
| Seats5: | 22 |
| Last Election5: | 16 |
| Seat Change5: | 6 |
| Swing5: | 1.66pp |
| Image6: | Swedish Green Leadership in 1998.jpg |
| Leader6: | Marianne Samuelsson Birger Schlaug |
| Party6: | Green Party (Sweden) |
| Popular Vote6: | 279,042 |
| Percentage6: | 5.02% |
| Seats6: | 18 |
| Last Election6: | 0 |
| Seat Change6: | 18 |
| Swing6: | 1.64pp |
| Image7: | Alf Svensson 2003-08-25 001.jpg |
| Leader7: | Alf Svensson |
| Party7: | Christian Democrats (Sweden) |
| Popular Vote7: | 225,974 |
| Percentage7: | 4.07% |
| Seats7: | 15 |
| Last Election7: | 26 |
| Seat Change7: | 11 |
| Swing7: | 3.07pp |
| PM | |
| Before Election: | Carl Bildt |
| Before Party: | Moderate Party |
| After Election: | Ingvar Carlsson |
| After Party: | Swedish Social Democratic Party |
| Elected Members: | List of members of the Riksdag, 1994–98 |
| Outgoing Members: | List of members of the Riksdag, 1994–98 |
General elections were held in Sweden on 18 September 1994.[1] The Swedish Social Democratic Party remained the largest party in the Riksdag, winning 161 of the 349 seats.[2] Led by Ingvar Carlsson, the party returned to power and formed a minority government after the election. This was the final time the Social Democrats recorded above 40% of the vote before the party's vote share steeply declined four years later and never recovered. The Greens also returned to the Riksdag in the 1994 elections, after a three-year absence.
The election saw the largest bloc differences for a generation, with the red-green parties making sizeable inroads into the blue heartlands of inner Småland and Western Götaland, at an even higher rate than 1988. The Social Democrats gathered more than 50% of the vote in all five northern counties, Blekinge, Södermanland, Västmanland and Örebro.
In spite of the loss of power, the Moderates retained their 80 seats and gained 0.5% from 1991. Due to the sizeable losses of their coalition, the net difference between the blocs was 53, with the red-greens making up 201 and the blue parties 148.
The Christian Democrats fared poorly, merely beating the threshold by 3,752 votes.[3] New Democracy, a right-wing populist political party which had entered the Riksdag three years earlier, performed poorly, losing most of its voters and all of its seats in the Riksdag. In total the party's vote share dropped from 6.7% in 1991 to 1.2% in 1994. The election introduced an extended electoral cycle of four years, replacing the previous three-year terms.
The proportion of women elected to the Riksdag increased from 34% in 1991 to 40%,[4] [5] following a campaign by the before the elections.[6]
They were the first elections in the world in which the official results were published live on the nascent internet.[7]
| 1994 Swedish general election debates | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Time | Organizers | Moderators | Present Invitee Non-invitee | |||||||||
| S | M | L | C | KD | NyD | V | MP | Refs | |||||
| Sveriges Television | Pia Brandelius [sv]Maud Zachrisson | P Ingvar Carlsson | P Carl Bildt | P Bengt Westerber | P Olof Johansson | P Alf Svensson | P Vivianne Franzén | P Gudrun Schyman | P Birger Schlaug | ||||
See main article: Results of the 1994 Swedish general election.
| Constituency | Total seats | Seats won | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| By party | By coalition | |||||||||||
| S | M | C | F | V | MP | KDS | ||||||
| Älvsborg North | 12 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 5 | 1 | |
| Älvsborg South | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 3 | ||||||
| Blekinge | 6 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 2 | |||||||
| Bohus | 13 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 1 | |
| Gävleborg | 12 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 4 | 1 | ||
| Gothenburg | 17 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 7 | 1 | ||
| Gotland | 2 | 2 | 2 | |||||||||
| Halland | 9 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 5 | |||||
| Jämtland | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | ||||||
| Jönköping | 14 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 7 | 1 | |
| Kalmar | 11 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 5 | ||||
| Kopparberg | 13 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 5 | 1 | |
| Kristianstad | 12 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 6 | ||||
| Kronoberg | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 3 | ||||||
| Malmö | 8 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 3 | |||||||
| Malmöhus North | 10 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 5 | |||||
| Malmöhus South | 12 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 1 | |||
| Norrbotten | 11 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 2 | |||||
| Örebro | 13 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 5 | 1 | |
| Östergötland | 15 | 7 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 6 | 1 | |
| Skaraborg | 12 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 5 | 1 | |
| Södermanland | 11 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 4 | 1 | ||
| Stockholm County | 36 | 14 | 11 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 16 | 18 | 2 | |
| Stockholm Municipality | 26 | 9 | 8 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 11 | 13 | 2 | |
| Uppsala | 12 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 5 | 1 | ||
| Värmland | 11 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 4 | ||||
| Västerbotten | 11 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 4 | 1 | |
| Västernorrland | 12 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 4 | 1 | ||
| Västmanland | 11 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 4 | ||||
| Total | 349 | 161 | 80 | 27 | 26 | 22 | 18 | 15 | 183 | 148 | 18 | |
| align=left colspan=13 | Source: Statistics Sweden | |||||||||||