2009 Steinborgian federal election

2009 Steinborgian federal election

October 25, 2009 (2009-10-25)
All 200 seats in the Federal Parliament 101 seats needed for a majority
Registered	69,371,263
Turnout	51,612,220 (74.4%) 13.6 pp
First party Second party Third party   Leader Ants Raud Indrek Saar Peteri Laaksonen Party Social Democrats Worker's Christian Democrats Last election 46 seats, 21.4% 13 seats, 6.1% 91 seats, 42.2% Seats won 65 47 33 Seat change 19 34 58 Popular vote 14,445,301 10,903,935 7,133,082 Percentage 28.8% 21.7% 14.2% Swing 7.4 pp 15.6 pp 28.0 pp   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Kristel Miller Toomas Koppel Olli Uusitalo Party Greens Liberals Alternative Last election 20 seats, 8.8% 30 seats, 13.7% Did not exist Seats won 18 16 9 Seat change 2 14 New Popular vote 4,323,629 3,694,751 2,689,945 Percentage 8.6% 7.4% 5.3% Swing 0.2 pp 6.3 pp New   Seventh party Eighth party   Leader Timo Jalonen Karin Lill Party People's New Democracy Last election Did not exist Did not exist Seats won 7 5 Seat change New New Popular vote 2,585,487 2,471,545 Percentage 5.1% 4.9% Swing New New

Federal elections were held in Steinborg on 25 October 2009 to elect the members of the 21st Federal Parliament. All 200 memeber of the Federal Parliament were elected in 15 multi-member constituencies.

The economic recession that started in 2006 was the biggest issue of the election. The coalition government consisting of the Christian Democratic Forum and the Liberals failed to properly deal with the crisis and the recession went on to impact the Steinborgian economy to election day and beyond. As a result, the coalition government was languishing in the polls since almost the beggining of their term. The opposition parties, and especially the Social Democratic Party and the Worker's Party, took advantage of the negative economic situtation, heavily criticizing the government and making economic reform a central theme of their campaign.

In a historic vote, the parties of the coalition government were decimated, losing 60% of their previous vote share and seats. The Christian Democratic Forum failed to place first or second in an election for the first time in its history. The Social Democratic Party emerged as the relative winner of the election, while the Worker's Party made the biggest gains and received its highest vote share ever. Three new parties, the Alternative, the People's Party and New Democracy entered parliament for the first time and they perfomed better than opinion polls had predicted. Turnout also reached a historic high of 72.4%, a record that held until the 2017 federal election.

Ants Raud, the leader of the Social Democratic Party, successfuly negotiated a coalition government with the Worker's Party and was sworn in as Paalik on 28 November 2024.