Sweden’s extreme right makes great progress in the cliffhanger election
STOCKHOLM: Sweden on Monday began a days-long wait for the final result of a too-close-to-call parliamentary election, with an unprecedented right-wing and far-right bloc in position to wrest power from Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson’s Social Democrats.
The Scandinavian country has seen increasing political instability in recent years as the gradual rise of the far-right has upset the traditional balance of power in parliament. Sweden once again found itself in a delicate parliamentary situation after Sunday’s parliamentary election, where the right was seen to have a razor-sharp lead over Andersson’s departing left-wing bloc.
“The close result in the Riksdag indicates that Sweden is on its way to another messy mandate,” wrote the reference newspaper Dagens Nyheter on Monday. Election authorities said a final result would not be known until Wednesday at the earliest, when the last ballots from abroad and from advance voting had been counted.
Aftonbladet editor Anders Lindberg told AFP it seemed “impossible for the left to win because the votes from abroad are… usually for the right”. With 95 percent of the votes counted on Monday, the right wing led by conservative Moderate leader Ulf Kristersson was granted an absolute majority of 175 out of 349 seats in the Riksdag.
Andersson’s left bloc lagged behind with 174. If confirmed, the Social Democrats would be out after eight years in power. Kristersson, who promised during the campaign to crack down on law and order amid soaring crime rates, said he was “prepared to build a new and strong government”.
The election’s big winner, however, was the anti-immigration, nationalist Sweden Democrats party led by Jimmie Åkesson. It received 20.6 percent of the vote, making it the largest party on the right and the second largest in the country after the Social Democrats.
“It’s looking bloody good now,” 43-year-old Akesson told jubilant supporters late Sunday. The right-wing bloc — consisting of the Sweden Democrats, the Moderates, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals — was seen to win 49.7 percent.
The Left, consisting of the Social Democrats, the Left, the Green Party and the Center, was credited at the same time with 48.9 percent.
Prime Minister Andersson, 55, has refused to throw in the towel yet. “We will not have a final result tonight,” she told supporters late Sunday as her party was seen posting a strong showing of around 30 percent of the vote.
She urged Swedes to “be patient” and “let democracy take its course”. The election meant a major shift in Swedish politics. For the first time, the Moderates, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals linked up with the extreme right, long treated as “pariahs” by other political parties. Kristersson orchestrated the change, starting preparatory talks with the Sweden Democrats in 2019 and then deepening their cooperation.