The wait in Sweden has been long from election Sunday until the end of the count with official results this Thursday. Finally, the center-left opposition bloc of former Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson has managed to prevail over the right-wing alliance of the current Prime Minister, conservative Ulf Kristersson. The Social Democratic Party and the center-left bloc it is part of will have 176 seats out of the 349 seats in the Riksdag (Parliament), one more than the absolute majority, compared to 173 for the parties supporting Kristersson.
The race has been very close, just like in the 2022 and 2018 elections, although this time Andersson’s bloc has always led both exit polls and the partial count. The Scandinavian kingdom of 10.4 million inhabitants is now preparing for complex government negotiations. The constitutive session of the new Riksdag elected will take place on September 28.
In principle, Andersson will be able to return to power after four years in opposition, although she will have to weave a complicated coalition agreement with the Centre Party, the leftists, and the Greens. Centrists and leftists have deep differences, so the struggle will be considerable. The current Prime Minister, conservative Ulf Kristersson, is expected to resign during Thursday.
First steps
The current Prime Minister, conservative Ulf Kristersson, will resign during the day
Magdalena Andersson, a 59-year-old economist, the first woman to reach the head of government in Sweden, became Prime Minister in November 2021, after her predecessor and party colleague, Stefan Löfven, resigned following a lost vote of no confidence in Parliament and other political tensions.
Löfven had been Prime Minister since 2014, and after those eight years in power, the Social Democrats lost the September 2022 elections by a very narrow margin, yet they were still the most voted party. In fact, the Social Democratic Party has been the most voted in general elections in Sweden since 1917 and has often dominated the politics of this country.
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The bloc of four right-wing parties of Kristersson, which includes the far-right Sweden Democrats (SD) as external support, has been defeated. The far-right also recorded a setback at the polls, contrasting with its good results in the rest of Europe.
Both blocs on the spectrum consist of four parties. The center-left is made up of: Andersson’s Social Democratic Party, which was the most voted with 28%; the leftists, who obtained 8.4%; the Centre Party, with 7%; and the Greens, who achieved 6.1%. Meanwhile, the right-wing bloc was led by Kristersson’s Moderate Party, which with 19.9% surpassed the far-right SD (17.5%), whereas in the 2022 elections the SD had been the leader of the right-wing bloc to the detriment of the Moderates. At a greater distance were the Christian Democrats with 6.2% and the Liberals with 5.3%.
The recent count of early votes and votes from residents abroad has raised turnout to 84.3%, according to preliminary figures from the Swedish Electoral Authority. In any case, it is clear that turnout this time is higher than in 2022, when 84.2% of voters cast their ballots.
The Social Democratic Party committed during the campaign to strengthen the welfare state and help households facing the rising cost of living, financing such promises by raising taxes on banks and higher incomes. During this legislature, Kristersson’s right-wing government has tightened immigration legislation to make it one of the strictest in the European Union. The Social Democrats in opposition tacitly, and sometimes explicitly, endorsed this immigration policy and made it clear during the campaign that if they return to government, they will maintain this line.
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