Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - III. Constitution and Administration. Introd. by E. Hildebrand - 1. Constitution. By E. Hildebrand - System of Proportional Representation. By E. von Heidenstam - Political Parties. By H. Brulin
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POLITICAL PARTIES.
207
The new mode of election came into force the very same year that it
was established by law, and so far (to the end of 1913) it has been employed
at about a thousand elections, including the general election of 1911 to
both chambers of the Riksdag. The electors seem to have found little
difficulty in mastering the new regulations; and the number of voting-papers
that have had to be rejected owing to the mistakes or negligences of the
electors is o^ite infinitesimal. That the new mode of election had a task
to fulfil, and on the whole has fulfilled it satisfactorily, is shown by
the demands arising in various quarters for its extended application. One
mode of expressing this demand is found in the motions with this object
that have been brought forward in the Riksdag and have in their turn
led the Riksdag to petition the Government to submit proposals for the
introduction of proportional representation in the elections to communal
councils and of certain boards and committees of county-councils and
town-councils. And in fact the Riksdag has now passed bills which have been
introduced by the Government with these objects; and these bills came into
force on 1 July 1913.
Political Parties.
The first, and for a long time the strongest, party organization within
the Riksdag, as that emerged from the parliamentary reforms of 1865—66,
was the Agricultural Party (Lantmannapartiet) in the Second Chamber —
a combination mainly of peasant representatives, formed as early as 1867,
which looked well after the interests of their class in the parliamentary
struggles of the following years on the questions of national defence and
the land-tax. The Centre, originally a coalition of the opponents of the
Agriculturals in the Second Chamber, never attained the close organization
of its opponents, and underwent repeated transformations and cleavages.
The unity of the Agricultural Party was also shattered, however, when the
Customs question became dominant in the eighties: in 1888 its protectionist
fraction formed the New Agricultural Party, while the free-traders rallied
in the Old Agricultural Party. After the Customs contest had ceased, the
two groups were reunited in 1895; the Agricultural Party thus reshaped
assumed an increasingly conservative character, and now, under the name
of the Agricultural and Civic Party (Lantmanna- och
borgar-partiet) — which was adopted in 1912 on its amalgamation with
the National Progressive Party that had been formed in 1906 on almost,
the same political principles — it forms the organized Right in the Second
Chamber. The reunion of 1895 led in the same year to the rise of a distinct
Left, the People s Party, based on the Liberal elements both in the Centre
and in the Old Agriculturals. In 1900 this was merged in the United
Liberal Party (Liberala samlingspartiet), which was formed in that
year for the purpose of carrying through the extension of the franchise;
and this party still forms the organized non-socialist Left in the Riks-
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