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. 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.