Sweden Election
SVT’s projections, with more than half of election districts counted, showed the opposition, led by Magdalena Andersson’s Social Democrats, with the slimmest possible majority of 175 seats in the Riksdag, Sweden’s parliament, while Kristersson’s camp was seen at 174 seats. The election, while unlikely to change the course of Sweden’s pro-Western and pro-Ukraine stance, will decide whether the Nordic nation of 10.6 million halts its drift away from its liberal traditions and towards a hard-right clampdown on migration. Ballot-counting continues.
Sweden’s parliamentary election result showed a dead heat in early election results on Sunday, with public broadcaster SVT projecting the right-wing bloc of Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson was virtually tied with the centre-left opposition.
Cheers broke out at the Sweden Democrats’ election party after an updated SVT projection showed a much narrower gap than an initial exit poll, which had indicated the centre-left opposition was leading with 51% of the vote. “Maybe we won’t even have the results until Wednesday when the votes that have been cast abroad arrive.
In a pre-election pledge, Kristersson broke a long-standing taboo and said he would bring into government the Sweden Democrats, a far-right party with roots in the Nazi fringe, aiming to create a majority right-wing coalition. “I think it will be a long night,” said Maria Malmer Stenergard, Minister for Foreign Affairs and a member of Kristersson’s Moderate Party. Early results from the Swedish Election Authority are expected late on Sunday or in the early hours on Monday, although given the closeness of the race the winner may not be known for several days, after all overseas ballots are counted.