Sweden goes to the polls with far-right set to hold balance
of power
Surge in support for populists will see realignment of
politics after too-close-to-call vote
Jon Henley in Stockholm
@jonhenley
Sun 9 Sep 2018 09.00 BST First published on Sat 8 Sep 2018
18.00 BST
Polling stations have opened in Sweden in elections likely
to force a historic realignment in the nation’s politics, as support for the
established centre-right and centre-left blocs slumps in the face of a surge by
the populist, anti-immigration Sweden Democrats.
Late polls showed that the race was too close to call, with
the outgoing Social Democrat-Green coalition of prime minister Stefan Löfven
and its ex-communist Left party parliamentary allies on about 40-41% of the
vote, and the four-party centre-right opposition, led by the Moderates, two to
three points behind.
But with more than a quarter of the country’s 7.5 million
voters still undecided and the true level of support for the Sweden Democrats
notoriously hard to judge – recent polls have put the nationalist party on
anything between 16% and 25% – the outcome remains far from certain.
“The only thing that’s sure is that the Sweden Democrats
will do a lot better than the 13% they got last time around,” said Niklas
Bolin, a political scientist at Mid Sweden University specialising in the
radical right.
“That could mean an extremely complicated process to form a
government, perhaps the most complicated we’ve seen.”
With neither mainstream bloc on course for a majority in the
349-seat Riksdag, some form of cooperation between the two, or an informal
accommodation with the Sweden Democrats, will be needed to pass legislation.
But the centre-left and centre-right have never governed
together, and all other parties have pledged to continue shunning the
populists, who – although purged of their most openly racist and neo-fascist
elements over the past decade – had their early roots in Sweden’s Nazi
movement.
With far-right, anti-immigration, nation-first and populist
parties making advances across Europe and now in government in Italy, Austria,
Norway and Finland, the election, in a country long seen as a model of
political stability, is being closely watched as the latest test of
anti-establishment sentiment on the continent.
In a campaign dominated by immigration, integration, crime,
healthcare and education, the Sweden Democrats have rarely strayed from their
core message: that the 400,000 asylum seekers Sweden has welcomed since 2012 –
the most, per head of the population, of any European country – are straining
the country’s generous welfare state to breaking point.
But recent research by Stockholm university found that, as
elsewhere in Europe, both the Eurosceptic, anti-immigration party’s politicians
and its voters fall into categories whose employment and overall economic
situations have worsened after the 2008 financial crisis.
In the leaders’ final debate this week, the party’s leader,
Jimmie Åkesson, said: “Why is it so difficult for these migrants to get a job?
That is because they’re not Swedish. They can’t adjust to Sweden.”
Löfven, whose Social Democrats have won every Swedish
election since 1917 but are forecast to slide to a historic low of barely 25%
of the vote, yesterday accused the Sweden Democrats of racism, and repeated a
longstanding pledge never to cooperate with them.
“We are not going to retreat one millimetre in the face of hatred
and extremism wherever it shows itself,” he said. “Again and again and again,
they show their Nazi and racist roots, and they are trying to destroy the EU at
a time when we need that cooperation the most.”
Löfven has suggested he could be open to some form of
cross-bloc arrangement with two smaller centre-right opposition parties, the
Centre and Liberal parties.
Polls suggest that up to a third of Moderate party voters
would back the inclusion of the Sweden Democrats in a new government.
But party leader Ulf Kristersson has also refused to
contemplate any tie-up, however informal, with the populists, who have said
they will work with anyone but would demand policy concessions particularly on
immigration.
Some analysts believe that polling companies may be
underestimating the strength of support for the Sweden Democrats. Traditional
polls, based on phone calls, suggest the party will win 16-19% of the vote –
but badly underestimated its performance in 2014. Online surveys, which came
much closer to the populists’ actual score, suggest a score of up to 25%.
Polling stations close at 8pm, with first estimates expected
soon afterwards and final results due before midnight, but the composition of
the next government may not be known for weeks.
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