With a steadily rising number of shootings unnerving voters, the parties are racing to be the toughest on gang crime, while rising inflation and the energy crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have increasingly taken center stage. Law and order is the turf for the right, but gathering economic storm clouds could boost the Social Democratic prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, who is seen as a safe pair of hands and more popular than her party. “My clear message is: during the pandemic we supported Swedish companies and households. I will act in exactly the same way again if I have your renewed confidence,” he said in one of the last discussions before Sunday’s vote. Andersson was finance minister for many years before becoming Sweden’s first female prime minister a year ago. Her main rival is moderate leader Ulf Kristersson, who sees himself as the only person who can unite the right and overthrow it. Kristersson has spent years deepening ties with the Sweden Democrats, an anti-immigration party with white defenders among its founders. The Sweden Democrats, who initially shunned all other parties, are now increasingly part of the mainstream right. “We will prioritize law and order, making it profitable to work and build new climate-smart nuclear power,” Kristersson said in a video released by his party. “Simply put, we want to fix Sweden.” Polling stations opened at 8am local time and close at 8pm, with final results expected around midnight. Polls show the centre-left with the right-wing bloc, where the Sweden Democrats appear to have recently overtaken the Moderates as the second largest party behind the Social Democrats. For many centre-left voters – and even some on the right – the prospect of Jimmie Åkesson’s Sweden Democrats having a say in government policy or joining the cabinet remains deeply unsettling, and the election is seen in part as a referendum on whether to this power. Kristersson wants to form a government with the small Christian Democrats and, possibly, the Liberals, and rely only on the support of the Sweden Democrats in parliament. But these are assurances that the center-left does not take at face value. Uncertainty is high for the election, with the two blocs facing long and tough negotiations to form a government in a polarized and emotionally charged political landscape. Anderson will need support from the ideologically opposed Center and Left parties, and possibly the Greens, if she wants a second term as prime minister. “I have very few red lines,” Annie Lööf, whose Center party split with Kristersson over his embrace of the Sweden Democrats, said in a recent SVT interview. “A red line I have is that I will never let through a government that gives influence to the Sweden Democrats.”
