What is "khaki election"

In Westminster systems of government, a khaki election is any national election which is heavily influenced by wartime or postwar sentiment. In the British general election of 1900, the Conservative Party government of Lord Salisbury was returned to office, defeating a disunited Liberal Party. The reason for this name is that the election was held in the midst of the Second Boer War, and " khaki" was the colour of the relatively new military uniform of the British army that had been universally adopted in that war.

The term was later used to describe two later British elections, the 1918 general election, fought at the end of the First World War and resulting in the huge victory of David Lloyd George's wartime coalition government, and the 1945 general election, held during the closing stages of the Second World War, where the Labour Party candidate, Clement Attlee, won by a landslide. Another such case is the 1983 general election, in which the Conservative Party (UK) government of Margaret Thatcher was elected into office despite previous unpopularity previously linked to the economic situation. The Falklands War ensured the next Conservative term in office.

The term is also applied to the 1917 Canadian federal election, which was held during the First World War. By allowing servicemen and women related to servicemen to vote, Sir Robert Borden's Unionist Party won a majority.

The term also has currency in Australia. In 2015 the Labor Party Opposition accused the Coalition Federal Government of attempting to manufacture a khaki election by emphasising "terror and military action" in response to the 2014 rise of violent Islamic extremism from the Islamic State terrorist group.