Sverigevalet: Your quick and easy guide to this month’s vote
The political race to form the next Swedish government could not be fiercer.
With a parliamentary election next Sunday, September 11, the left-wing Social Democrats, who have won every election in the last hundred years, face a strong challenge from the right-wing parties.
Incumbent Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson may well be in a position to try to form the next government if her party wins the most seats and looks to be able to form a stable coalition block with other left and center parties. But a right-wing coalition government led by either the traditionally largest conservative party, the Moderates, or by the surging right-wing party, the Sweden Democrats, could also be called upon to form the next coalition.
With Andersson enjoying far more popularity than her party, and much of the election debate focused on fundamentally right-wing issues, everything remains at stake as the campaign enters its final stretch before Election Day.
So what is at stake, who are the main parties, what do they stand for, what are the main issues and possible outcomes, and why does this election matter?
We have all these answers – and more – in our quick and easy guide to the Swedish parliamentary elections:
Why should I care about the Swedish parliamentary election?
It is true that a routine general election in a stable Western European democracy would not normally generate many headlines. But Sweden matters. Why? Because it is seen as liberal and progressive, and many policy areas that eventually become more mainstream in the rest of Europe – such as gender equality or rights for LGBTQ people – started in Sweden.
And this year, the real advance of the far-right Sweden Democrats, with their roots in white nationalism and fascism, is really challenging the established order in Sweden and setting the agenda for discussion around immigration and law and order, just 12 years after their first MPs were returned to parliament.
So how does the election work and what is the voting system?
General elections take place at least every four years to elect 349 members of the Swedish Riksdag, called the Parliament. Regional and municipal elections are also taking place at the same time, on Sunday 11 September, but we will focus here on the general election.
Early voting started on 24 August and it is possible to vote at Swedish embassies abroad as well. After the first four days of voting, turnout was lower than it had been in previous years. However, the total voter turnout tends to be very high in Sweden, at the last election almost 90% of those entitled to vote voted.
But here’s a fun fact! If you vote early, change your mind and choose a different party or candidate on election day, the new vote will remove your previous vote.
Sweden uses a type of proportional representation where each party presents a list of candidates, where 29 constituencies get a certain number of MPs to ensure there is regional representation from across the country – and then the other MPs are elected by “proportional balancing” which helps to ensure that the number of MPs elected for each party accurately reflects the votes of the people.
At the polling stations, there is not just a piece of paper with different parties or candidates on it: instead, the main parties have their own individual colored ballots, and voters take the party’s paper into the booth to choose their favourite. candidate.
This system was criticized by OSCE in its report into the 2018 election, saying it could compromise voter secrecy. But voters can bring several different papers from several parties to the booth, so it’s not always clear who they will ultimately vote for.
Any party that receives at least 4% of the national vote – or 12% in a constituency – will win seats in the Riksdag.
At the last general election in 2018, there were more than two dozen other parties campaigning either nationally or in specific areas on niche platforms, but none received more than half a percent of the total vote and thus received none. Members of Parliament.
What are the main political parties?
The current government is led by the left social democratsand Magdalena Andersson is Sweden’s first female prime minister. It is a minority government, meaning it has neither a majority in parliament nor any formal coalition partners, but must work with other parties — mainly Green — to get legislation passed.
The The left party and The Center Party are the other likely participants in a left bloc coalition.
Center-right or far-right parties make up the rest: Liberals; Moderating; The Christian Democrats and The Sweden Democrats.
“Immigration is the reason why the Sweden Democrats exist in the first place, they are the anti-immigration ticket,” explained Pontus Odalma Swede who lectures in politics at the University of Edinburgh.
“Then during that they come from the neo-Nazi movement of the 1980s, then they tried to mainstream themselves and talk less about blood and heritage, and talk more about the incompatibility of other races in the same space.”
Who are some of the most important party leaders to know?
Magdalena Andersson is arguably the rock star the Social Democrats have needed, and she is cast in campaign ads in an almost presidential light. Voters say they trust her more than other party leaders, especially after following the country toward NATO membership, a historic shift in the DNA of her party’s approach to the military alliance.
Jimmie Åkesson is the leader of the far-right Sweden Democrats and has been a Member of Parliament for more than a decade. During his time as party leader, he has worked to modernize the party, tried to shake off its old image of being rooted in fascism and ethno-nationalism, and made the Sweden Democrats electable. Åkesson has led his party to unprecedented popularity since breaking through the election threshold in 2010 for the first time with 20 members of parliament. The Sweden Democrats have changed their views on the EU under his leadership and there is no longer talk of a Swedish withdrawal from the EU – Swexit – but instead he wants to see it as a union of nation states with an emphasis on trade.
“The Sweden Democrats had a hard time taking a stand against the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Jimmie Åkesson refused to choose between Putin and Zelenskyy in an interview,” says Pontus Odmalm at the University of Edinburgh.
“He said he was against the invasion, but he was not ready to speak out about Putin, and there are various links between his party and the Kremlin,” Odmalm added: similar links have plagued other far-right parties in France, Austria and Italy.
Ulf Kristersson is a veteran politician, former minister and leader of the right-wing party Moderates. Traditionally the most important opposition party in Sweden, Kristersson has been chairman during a period where support has fallen, as voters see more right to the Sweden Democrats. If the Moderates are not in the next Swedish government, and if Kristersson leads them to a defeat in third place behind the Sweden Democrats, his position as leader may become untenable.
Ebba Busch is the leader of the Christian Democrats, a photogenic party leader who does not care about her views on immigration, especially from Muslim countries, and how she believes it has affected the traditional idyll of Swedish life.
What are the most important issues for voters?
So what questions are the Swedes dealing with before Sunday’s election? Is it the cost of living crisis, the war in Ukraine, winter’s fuel bills or perhaps in Greta Thunberg’s home country, are environmental issues important?
Nora Theorin, researcher at Gothenburg University Department of Political Science says that it is the issues traditionally important to the right that have dominated this election campaign.
“I would say that at the top right now on the political and media agenda, and also for many voters, is law and order, crime, and often the issue is linked to integration and immigration,” she told Euronews.
“On the other hand, left-wing parties tend to emphasize the role of class and income inequality.”
“We also have a lot of discussion right now about the economy and rising energy prices as well, and as a consequence of that, nuclear power is higher on the agenda than normal because many parties think it’s the solution,” Theorin added.
What are the likely results of the election? Who will win?
Based on the latest opinion polls, it is still a mixed picture, although the Social Democrats seem to be gaining some extra support.
Of three opinion polls released over the weekend, two of them showed Magdalena Andersson’s Social Democrats and a bloc consisting of green, left and center parties on course to form the next government.
However, the survey with the latest field work and the largest sample size showed a narrow win instead for the right/right parties in a bloc led by the Sweden Democrats, the Moderates, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals:
“I think it is interesting that the issues that are at the top of the political debate are more right-wing issues, it is more likely that they are stakeholders. But at the same time, Magdalena Andersson has significantly higher trust than Ulf Kristersson,” says the University of Gothenburg’s university. The Nora Theory.
“And anyway, about 30% of people only decide in the last week which party to vote for,” she noted.
Who are the winners and losers so far in the campaign?
The biggest losers in this election cycle – even if they end up in government – are the Moderates, who have bled support to the far-right Sweden Democrats: a change in the Swedish political landscape that other parties have also tried to cash in on, including the Social Democrats spending more time and energy than what one could ever expect to highlight their places of law and order.
On the back of that, the big winners in this election cycle – even if they don’t end up in government – are the Sweden Democrats who have proven that it is now “socially acceptable” to support a far-right party in Sweden, and who have built a very strong media operation that has been successful in getting its message out on social media channels and YouTube.
The Greens seem to have reason to pop the champagne corks next week, regardless of whether they are in or out of government. Earlier in the campaign it looked like they might struggle to get over the 4% mark, but one of Sunday’s new polls had them as high as 7.6%, which would be their highest polling figures for seven years, and if that holds up on election day would be the party’s best election result.