Editing Östersund Municipality (section)

==Politics and governance==
Swedish municipalities are responsible for government-mandated duties, and elections for the [[municipal council]] (''[[municipal assembly (Sweden)|kommunfullmäktige]]'') are held every four years, parallel to the [[general election]]s.

===Political history===
Östersund gained a city council (''stadsfullmäktige'') in 1863, known as ''Östersunds stad'', and each member was elected through a [[single-winner voting system]]. Sweden was [[democratization|democratized]] in the end of the 1910s and a more [[parliament]]arian election system was introduced. Östersund continued to be governed by the ''burghers'', unlike Sweden nationally. The dominating parties were [[Moderate Party|the conservatives]], [[Liberalism and centrism in Sweden|the freeminded]] and the [[Swedish Social Democratic Party|social democrats]]. The latter did become the single largest party in 1938 but due to a strong centre-right majority it remained in opposition. The only other party present in Östersund was [[Left Party (Sweden)|the communists]], though they had little support in the city, having entered the city council in 1922 and lost representation completely in 1930. The conservatives was by far the largest party and had a majority of its own with 18 seats in 1922. After the municipal elections of 1950 the situation had changed. The conservatives was the smallest party with 10 seats, the liberals (now represented by [[Liberal People's Party (Sweden)|the Liberal People's party]]) had 11 and the social democrats 19. This was in contrast to the turnout on a national level, where the social democrats had been the dominant party for over a decade gaining e.g. 46 percent of the votes in the [[1948 Swedish general election|general elections of 1948]]. In 1952 a social democrat was appointed chairman of Östersund's governing body, due to the lack of political blocs and the strive for mutual agreements.

A majority for the social democrats was achieved first in 1962. The political scene was shortly afterwards altered, in 1966, when the [[Nordic agrarian parties|agrian and rural]] [[Centre Party (Sweden)|Centre Party]] (previously known as ''Peasant's League'') got into the city council, after broadening its scope to include non-farmers, alongside the [[Christian Democrats (Sweden)|Christian Democrats]] (though not present on the national political scene) and the communists returning after a 40-year period of absence. ''The burghers'' was thus back in power. Following the rise of [[Swedish welfare]] the small municipalities could not cope with their assigned duties. As a result, large municipality blocks were introduced and ''Östersunds stad'' was heavily enlarged and several districts kilometres away from the city were included in the new ''Östersund Municipality''.

The first election for the new municipality was held in 1970 and it was a large success for the Centre Party, both locally in Östersund and nationally due to its opposition towards [[centralisation]]. Having entered in 1966 with 4 seats it now possessed one fourth of the total number of seats (which was mainly due to support from the city, not the newly included rural areas). Block politics formation became prominent and the Centre Party became the leading party for the centre-right block, whilst the Social Democrats came to dominate the left block. The Social Democrats regained power in 1980 and has since governed Östersund Municipality until present day (excluding a brief period in the 1990s) supported by the communists (after 1991 known as the Left Party) and occasionally the [[Green Party (Sweden)|Green Party]]. The Green Party has been in the municipal council since 1982.