The social democrat remains the strongest force with her party.
(Photo: IMAGO/TT)
Stockholm Sweden’s Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson is close to winning the parliamentary elections, but must hope for a stable majority in her favour. According to initial forecasts, their Social Democrats will remain the strongest party with more than 29 percent after Sunday’s election.
Together, they and their previous supporter parties were only just ahead of a conservative party bloc including the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats. With a record result of more than 20 percent, the right-wing populists were on their way to becoming the second strongest force in the Reichstag in Stockholm for the first time.
The moderates of Andersson’s challenger Ulf Kristersson, who have traditionally been the second strongest force behind the Social Democrats, must expect to slip to third place. In a first forecast by the broadcaster SVT, they reached less than 19 percent – that would be their worst result since 2002.
Election in Sweden: Complicated government formation threatens
The eight parliamentary parties in Sweden are currently divided into two groups of four – a left-leaning and a conservative-right bloc. Andersson’s side currently has a minimal majority of 175 of the 349 seats in Parliament, while Kristersson’s bloc has 174. The SVT forecast put the left-leaning camp at 49.8 percent and the conservative camp at 49.2 percent.
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In terms of seats, it is 176 to 173. In other words, it remains very close. “An incredibly exciting election night lies ahead of us,” said an election expert after the forecast was published. According to SVT, only about 40,000 votes separated the two camps.
Threatening shift to the right: Sweden elects new parliament
Many top politicians therefore initially held back in the evening from making hasty statements – also against the background that the first forecasts for the 2018 election deviated by several percentage points from the final election result. “Nothing is clear,” said the social democratic party secretary Tobias Baudin.
>> Read here: Will the energy crisis become a financial crisis? How Sweden wants to prevent domino effects
Partial results, which the electoral authority gradually published in the evening, could provide more clarity. By 9:45 p.m., however, only the votes from around 23 percent of the 6,578 constituencies had been counted.
Regardless of the outcome of the election, Sweden is likely to face a lengthy process of forming a government, as it did after the general election four years ago. Because even within the two blocs, the parties disagree on several issues.
Andersson would have to reconcile very different viewpoints from the Left and the liberal Center Party. It cannot be ruled out that other coalition models across the two blocs could also be found when the government was formed.
Conservatives in Sweden approach right-wing populists
Andersson was only elected Prime Minister of Sweden in November 2021, succeeding her party colleague Stefan Löfven and becoming the first woman ever. Since then, the former finance minister has led a minority government made up entirely of Social Democrats, which has so far depended on the support of the liberal Center Party, the Left and the Greens in the Reichstag.
Meanwhile, Kristersson relies on moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals and the support of the previously isolated Sweden Democrats.
Under Andersson, Sweden applied for NATO membership in mid-May as part of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. In the election campaign, however, the sharp rise in energy prices and the rampant gang crime in the Scandinavian EU country were the most important issues.
The focus on fighting criminals apparently played into the hands of the right-wing in particular. Andersson made it clear again on election day that she was ready to work with all parties except the Sweden Democrats. She was very disappointed that other parties had decided differently in this regard.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg also warned against populist tones. She criticized at the weekend that a young activist had been publicly ridiculed by a moderate politician in the course of a television debate between Andersson and Kristersson.
“A society where political parties systematically mock and hate children who simply point to research is a sick society,” Thunberg wrote on Twitter on Sunday. “Anti-democratic and populist winds are blowing strong. We have to stand up to that,” she said.
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