In British political history, 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 with an increased majority over the Liberal Party. The reason for this name is that the main issue of the election was the Second Boer War, as "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.
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.
Famous quotes containing the word election:
“Last evening attended Croghan Lodge International Order of Odd Fellows. Election of officers. Chosen Noble Grand. These social organizations have a number of good results. All who attend are educated in self-government. This in a marked way. They bind society together. The well-to-do and the poor should be brought together as much as possible. The separation into classes—castes—is our danger. It is the danger of all civilizations.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)