Gothenburg Municipality

Gothenburg Municipality (Göteborgs kommun or Göteborgs stad) is a municipality in Västra Götaland County in western Sweden. Its seat is located in the city of Gothenburg.

This article is about the administrative municipality. For the Riksdag constituency, see Gothenburg Municipality (Riksdag constituency).
Gothenburg Municipality
Göteborgs kommun
Municipality
Gothenburg City Hall
Gothenburg City Hall
Coat of arms of Gothenburg Municipality
Coat of arms
Coordinates: 57°42′N 11°56′E
CountrySweden
CountyVästra Götaland County
SeatGothenburg
Government
 • MayorJonas Attenius (Social Democratic Party)
Area
[1]
 • Total1,025.37 km2 (395.90 sq mi)
 • Land447.76 km2 (172.88 sq mi)
 • Water577.61 km2 (223.02 sq mi)
 Area as of 1 January 2014.
Population
 (May 2023)[2]
 • Total600,559
 • Density590/km2 (1,500/sq mi)
Time zoneUTC+1 (CET)
 • Summer (DST)UTC+2 (CEST)
ISO 3166 codeSE
ProvinceVästergötland and Bohuslän
Municipal code1480
Website
Gothenburg fish market

When the first Swedish local government acts were implemented in 1863 the City of Gothenburg, founded and chartered in 1621, became a city municipality with an elected city council (stadsfullmäktige). Its territory has since then been added through amalgamations in 1868, 1906, 1922, 1931, 1945, 1948, 1967 and 1974. The local government reform of 1971 made the city a unitary municipality, like all others in the country. The municipality prefers, however, to style itself Göteborgs stad (City of Göteborg[3]), whenever legally possible.

In March 2018 it was reported that the municipality and municipality-owned companies had 236 employees working with public relations (Swedish: kommunikation), more than Stockholm, to a cost of 400 000 SEK daily or 151 million SEK annually.[4][5]

Localities

The major part of the Gothenburg urban area (Göteborgs tätort) is situated within the municipality, but there are also some other localities as well as rural areas.

Boroughs
Further information: Boroughs and Districts of Gothenburg

In 1990 the municipality was subdivided into 21 stadsdelsnämnder (district boards), sometimes translated to boroughs, which they really are not. In 2009 the two district boards of Frölunda and Högsbo were joined. It has been decided that from the start of 2011 many more will be joined leaving 10 new district boards.

The boards carry responsibility for primary school, social, leisure, and cultural services within their respective areas. In the election of 1998 three boroughs (Askim, Torslanda and Älvsborg) held local referendums on forming their own municipalities, but their petitions were rejected by the government of Sweden.

Boroughs:

Politics and government

The municipality has a municipal assembly (kommunfullmäktige), consisting of 81 members, elected for four years. The municipal assembly meets in the Bourse, a building located on Gustaf Adolfs torg. There are nine political parties represented in the council elected in 2022:

Name Ideologies
Political alliance Vote share Seats +/-
S Swedish Social Democratic Party

Socialdemokraterna

 Social democracy Red-Green Coalition 26.4%
22 / 81
 +5
M Moderate Party

Moderaterna

 Liberal conservatism M–D–L–KD Coalition 17.1%
15 / 81
 +3
V Left Party

Vänsterpartiet

 Socialism, Eco-socialism Red-Green Coalition 15.8%
13 / 81
 +2
SD Sweden Democrats

Sverigedemokraterna

 National conservatism, Right-wing populism None 10.8%
9 / 81
 +2
DEM Democrats

Demokraterna

 Liberal conservatism, Populism[6] M–D–L–KD Coalition 6.1%
5 / 81
 -9
MP Green Party

Miljöpartiet

 Green politics Red-Green Coalition 6.0%
5 / 81
 -1
L Liberals

Liberalerna

 Liberalism, Conservative liberalism M–D–L–KD Coalition 5.5%
5 / 81
 -1
KD Christian Democrats

Kristdemokraterna

 Christian democracy, Conservatism M–D–L–KD Coalition 4.2%
4 / 81
 +1
C Centre Party

Centerpartiet

 Liberalism None 4.0%
3 / 81
 +-0
FI Feminist Initiative

Feministiskt Initiativ

 Feminism None 0.8%
0 / 81
 -2

After the 2022 election it was clear that the governing Alliance could not rule any longer with them winning only 27 seats in the chamber. Soon after the election the Centre Party announced they were starting negotiations with the Social Democrats (S), Left Party (V) and the Green Party (MP) about forming a majority coalition that could rule the city for the next four years. These negotiations broke down but S, V and MP could still take the power despite being a minority with only 40 out of 81 seats since C continues to refuse cooperation with the Sweden Democrats (SD).

There were ten political parties represented in the council elected in 2018:

Name Ideologies
Political alliance Vote share Seats +/-
S Swedish Social Democratic Party

Socialdemokraterna

 Social democracy None 20.5%
17 / 81
 -3
DEM Democrats

Demokraterna

 Liberal conservatism, Populism None 17.0%
14 / 81
 +14
M Moderate Party

Moderaterna

 Liberal conservatism Alliance 14.5%
12 / 81
 -8
V Left Party

Vänsterpartiet

 Socialism, Eco-socialism Red-green-pink Coalition 12.6%
11 / 81
 +3
SD Sweden Democrats

Sverigedemokraterna

 National conservatism, Right-wing populism None 8.3%
7 / 81
 +1
L Liberals

Liberalerna

 Liberalism, Conservative liberalism Alliance 7.2%
6 / 81
 -1
MP Green Party

Miljöpartiet

 Green politics Red-green-pink Coalition 6.9%
6 / 81
 -3
C Centre Party

Centerpartiet

 Liberalism Alliance 4.0%
3 / 81
 +3
KD Christian Democrats

Kristdemokraterna

 Christian democracy, Conservatism Alliance 3.3%
3 / 81
 +-0
FI Feminist Initiative

Feministiskt Initiativ

 Feminism Red-green-pink Coalition 2.3%
2 / 81
 -1

Following the 2018 municipal elections, neither traditional coalition of parties (the Alliance and the Red-Greens) was able to obtain a majority in the municipal assembly. The newly formed Democrats party, whose primary campaign promise is to stop the construction of the West Link, obtained 14 seats in the assembly, making it the second-largest party. The Green Party and the Left Party announced on 6 November that they would draft their own municipal budget together, along with Feminist Initiative - thus abandoning their traditional cooperation with the Social Democrats. This has been recognized as the three parties forming a local political alliance which has been referred to as the Red-green-pink coalition.[7] As a result of this the Alliance were able to take the power in Gothenburg for the first time in nearly 30 years.

The municipal executive committee (kommunstyrelsen) has 13 members, representing the six parties from the two major political coalitions who have seats in the assembly.

The chairwoman of the municipal assembly is Åse-Lill Törnquist (MP) and the chairman of the municipal executive committee (sometimes titled mayor) is Axel Josefson from the Moderate Party.

List of mayors
  • Sören Mannheimer, (Social Democrats) 1985-1988
  • Göran Johansson, (Social Democrats) 1988–1991
  • Johnny Magnusson (Moderate Party), 1991–1994
  • Göran Johansson (Social Democrats), 1994–2009
  • Anneli Hulthén (Social Democrats), 2009–2016
  • Ann-Sofie Hermansson (Social Democrats), 2016–2018
  • Axel Josefson (Moderate Party), 2018–2022
  • Jonas Attenius (Social Democrats), 2022–

International cooperation

The cooperation with the South African Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality (established in 1998) is a partnership fostering development of common fields of interest such as solid waste management, public libraries, sport and tourism. Gothenburg had signed an agreement with Shanghai in 1986 which was upgraded in 2003 to include exchanges in culture, economics, trade and sport. However, the agreement was allowed to lapse in 2020.[8]

See also

References
w:sv:Wikipedia:KML/Göteborgs kommun
KML is from Wikidata
  1. "Statistiska centralbyrån, Kommunarealer den 1 januari 2014" (in Swedish). Statistics Sweden. 2014-01-01. Archived from the original (Microsoft Excel) on 2016-09-27. Retrieved 2014-04-18.
  2. "Göteborg över 600 000 invånare – och Sverige har fått en ny minsta kommun". Statistics Sweden (in Swedish). 2023-07-10.
  3. Göteborgs Stads designprogram Archived 2009-03-26 at the Wayback Machine (in Swedish)
  4. Nyheter, SVT (2018-03-30). "Publicering kring kommunikatörer upprör – SVT svarar på kritiken". SVT Nyheter (in Swedish). Retrieved 2018-04-01.
  5. Nyheter, SVT (2018-03-27). "Göteborgarnas nota: Nästan en halv miljon – om dagen". SVT Nyheter (in Swedish). Retrieved 2018-04-01.
  6. ""Demokraterna kan orsaka politiskt kaos"". www.goteborgdirekt.se (in Swedish). 23 June 2018. Retrieved 2018-11-06.
  7. TT. "S ställs utanför nya blocket i Göteborg | SvD". SvD.se (in Swedish). Retrieved 2018-11-06.
  8. "Gothenburg axes twin city agreement with Shanghai as Sweden closes all Confucius Institutes". 24 April 2020.
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