A majority for the social democrats was achieved first in 1962. The political scene was shortly afterwards altered, in 1966, when the agrian and rural 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 (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".