Polls have shown the race to be too close to reach much of the campaign, and exit polls may differ from the final result. A TV4 poll on election day also showed the centre-left with a narrow lead. The exit poll predicted the center-left — led by Anderson’s Social Democrats, in power for eight years — would win 176 seats, one more than the 175 needed for a majority in the 349-seat parliament. The right was poised to win 173 seats, the exit poll showed. “The SVT exit poll has been right every time since they started doing it,” said Mikael Gilljam, professor of political science at the University of Gothenburg. “We don’t know if that’s the case this time. But if I have to put money on anyone, it’s going to be on the left.” The campaign had seen the parties battle it out to be the toughest on gang crime, after a steady rise in shootings has angered voters, while rising inflation and the energy crisis following the invasion of Ukraine have increasingly taken epicenter. The SVT exit poll showed Jimmie Akesson’s Sweden Democrats, who demand that asylum immigration be reduced to almost zero, with 20.5% of the vote, compared to 17.5% in the previous election. While law and order issues are a problem for the right, gathering economic clouds as households and companies grapple with high electricity prices had been seen as a boost to Prime Minister Anderson, seen as a safe pair of hands and more popular than her party. “I voted for a Sweden where we continue to build on our strengths. Our ability to face society’s problems together, to form a sense of community and to respect each other,” Andersson said after the vote in a Stockholm suburb. Andersson was finance minister for many years before becoming Sweden’s first female prime minister a year ago. Her main rival, moderate leader Ulf Christerson, had positioned himself as the only candidate who could unite the right and overthrow it.
In the mainstream
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. “Regardless of what happens tonight, the most important thing for me, for us, for all Sweden Democrats across the country, is the 175 seats so that we can finally bring about a change of power and our pro-Swedish policy,” Akesson stated. he told supporters at an election night rally. But for many center-left voters — and even some on the right — the prospect of the Sweden Democrats having a say in government policy or joining the cabinet remains deeply unsettling. “I’m very afraid of a repressive, far-right government coming in,” Malin Ericsson, 53, a travel consultant, said earlier Sunday at a polling station in central Stockholm. Other voters wanted to see change. “I voted for a change in power,” said Jorgen Hellstrom 47, a small business owner, as he voted near parliament. “Taxes need to come down a lot and we need to deal with crime. The last eight years have gone in the wrong direction.” Kristersson had said he would seek to form a government with the small Christian Democrats and possibly the Liberals, relying only on the support of the Sweden Democrats in parliament. But many on the center-left were not reassured. Whichever bloc wins, negotiations to form a government in a polarized and emotionally charged political landscape are likely to be long and difficult. Anderson will need support from the ideologically opposed Center and Left parties, and likely the Green Party, if she wants a second term as prime minister.
