Sweden faces a tight general election this Sunday, with polls showing how the right-wing bloc of the conservative Prime Minister, Ulf Kristersson, is closing the gap with the center-left opposition, which had been leading for weeks and was pointing to an almost certain victory. This possibility is due to the fact that, according to the latest survey by the market research institute Novus, the Liberal Party – a minor partner of Kristersson – would surpass the 4% threshold necessary to obtain parliamentary representation.
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As things stand, the four parties supporting former Social Democratic Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson are redoubling efforts for the ballot, in which Swedes will choose who should occupy the 349 seats in the Riksdag (Parliament).
The Novus survey gives the center-left bloc 50.3%, while the three parties of Kristersson’s government (conservatives, Christian Democrats, and liberals) and their external ally, the far-right Sweden Democrats (SD), would total 47.9%. Three weeks ago, Andersson’s parties led their rivals by 10 points in a poll by another agency, and political scientists judged that it was an almost insurmountable difference before election day.
Issue of the electoral contest
Immigration has been a topic in the rallies of this election; a government campaign offers money to non-EU residents if they leave Sweden
The scenario suggests that Prime Minister Kristersson, in office since October 2022, could perhaps gather a majority to repeat government. But there would be a substantial novelty. Four years ago, his Moderate Party (the name of the conservative formation), the Christian Democrats, and the Liberals – who until then had participated in the cordon sanitaire against the far right – accepted the external parliamentary support of the ultra SD but did not want them inside the government.
Now, the tune has changed. The four parties of the Tidö agreement – named after the 17th-century castle of the same name, 125 kilometers west of Stockholm, where they met in October 2022 – have already agreed that this time the SD would indeed be part of the Executive and have ministers.
“The Tidö agreement of 2022 broke a taboo; for the first time, the Sweden Democrats have exercised formal influence over a government, although without joining the cabinet,” says political scientist Mats Engström, senior researcher in Stockholm at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) think tank. “The Liberal Party is the one that has suffered the most consequences from collaborating with the Sweden Democrats; for weeks it has been polling below the 4% threshold necessary to enter Parliament.”
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Founded in 1988 by neo-Nazi supremacists, the Sweden Democrats have moderated since Jimmie Åkesson was elected leader in 2005. In 2010 they entered the Riksdag, and in the 2018 elections they garnered 17.5% of the votes, always cordoned off by the other parties. In the 2022 elections, they became the second parliamentary force with 20.5%. Hostility to immigration with xenophobic overtones remains a major banner of the SD and has permeated the initiatives of Ulf Kristersson’s government as well as the election campaign.
Sweden, a country once characterized by welcoming migrants, has been slowing entries for years. If in 2015 – the year of the refugee emergency from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan – it welcomed 163,000 asylum seekers, the second highest figure in Europe per capita, by 2025 that figure had fallen by 96%. The Social Democratic opposition tacitly endorses this migration restriction.
Since the beginning of this year, the government has offered non-EU residents up to 350,000 Swedish kronor (3,125 euros) to leave the country. The greatest enthusiasm for the measure comes from the Sweden Democrats, who finance a bus ad campaign with phrases like “Do you miss Mogadishu? The return subsidy will help you go back home,” in this case aimed at Somali immigrants, reports Ap.
Little has been said about foreign policy. “All parties take the Russian threat seriously and want to face it united,” continues political scientist Engström about the Scandinavian kingdom of 10.4 million inhabitants, which joined NATO in 2024 driven by Russian aggression against Ukraine. “The electoral contest has focused on social welfare, immigration, crime, climate, and the economy.”
