STOCKHOLM, September 13 — Sweden votes today in a general election that pits two four-party blocs against each other, with the incumbent conservative prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, dangling cabinet posts for his hard-right allies if he survives. More than eight million people are eligible to cast ballots for the Riksdag, the national parliament. The race, by the polls at least, is close.
A survey on Friday commissioned by Swedish news service Ekot put the left-wing bloc on 50.8% and the right-wing bloc on 47.6% — a lead of 3.2 percentage points for the left. Other polls published the same day also had the left ahead.
The arithmetic of two blocs
Swedish politics runs on a simple structure. Four parties sit on the right, four on the left, and coalition or minority government is the norm rather than the exception. The centre-left Social Democrats, who have promised higher public spending, led the Ekot poll on 28.6%.
Behind them on the right sat the Sweden Democrats on 18.3%. The left bloc is backing Magdalena Andersson, the Social Democrats’ leader, to return as prime minister.
She was narrowly ahead of Kristersson as voters’ preferred leader. The Social Democrats have led Swedish governments regularly since the Second World War and were the country’s dominant political force for much of the last century.
A party at the door of government
The Sweden Democrats are the anomaly in that story. Founded by Nazi sympathisers in the 1980s, the party spent decades shunned by the mainstream. The 2022 election marked a watershed, with the SD becoming Sweden’s second largest party after a campaign dominated by immigration and violent crime.
Since then it has offered outside support to the current centre-right coalition, which has overseen a sharp tightening of migration policy, including the abolition of permanent residency for refugees and increased deportations. No SD MP has ever held a ministerial role.
Whether that changes is the question hanging over today’s vote, and the prospect of the anti-immigration party entering government is one that could shape the outcome. National security, gang crime and welfare spending are among the issues driving the campaign. The SD has not been free of controversy during it.
Allegations have surfaced that a party official spread pro-Russian messages on social media. Kristersson said the official should be fired if the claims prove true.
SD leader Jimmie Åkesson said the party was investigating. For all the noise, the salient point is the margin. A 3.2-point poll lead is not a cushion, and Sweden’s bloc system has a habit of producing governments that rest on a handful of seats.
Watch the count, and watch whether Kristersson’s offer of cabinet jobs to the Sweden Democrats is one he ends up having to honour.
