Swedish parliamentary elections: Center-left bloc in narrow lead

Swedish parliamentary election results showed a narrow lead for the center-left opposition over the right-wing government early this morning, a move that could halt the Nordic country's drift away from its liberal heritage, Reuters news agency reported today.

The center-left bloc, led by Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson, is expected to win 176 seats in the 349-seat Riksdag, based on votes from 6.195 of the 6.312 constituencies, the election commission said.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristerson's right-wing ruling bloc is projected to win 173 seats. Vote counting continues, with final results expected on Wednesday at the earliest.

While the elections are unlikely to change Sweden's pro-Western and pro-Ukrainian policies, they could decide whether Kristerson's turn toward a hard-right policy on migration will be continued or even accelerated.

Given the very close result, the winner may not be known for several more days, or until all votes received from abroad have been counted.

"The race is very close, it will be a very long night, but I think the Social Democrats have achieved a pretty good election result," said Adonay Endrias Kidane, a doctor and Social Democrat supporter, at the party's post-election rally in central Stockholm.

In a campaign promise, Kristerson broke a long-standing political taboo, saying he would bring the Sweden Democrats, a far-right party with neo-Nazi roots, into the government in an effort to form a majority right-wing coalition.

Many right-wing voters say a victory would be a validation of policies that have helped curb gang violence and drastically reduce immigration, according to Reuters.

But some in the Nordic country of 10,6 million have expressed concern that Kristersson's appeal to the far right has gone too far. His critics also argue that his immigration policy, which uses incentives and penalties to pressure migrants to conform more to Swedish cultural norms or leave the country, is undermining civil liberties.

Kristerson had lagged in opinion polls during his four years in power, but in the final weeks of the campaign he began to catch up with his opponents, while Andersson and her Social Democrats were losing support.

Cultural norms

Hours after the polls closed, Kristerson said he still hoped he could form a majority among the eight political groups that won seats in the Riksdag, saying his party's economic policies were more popular than those of the opposition.

"Even if tonight's results remain as they are, I will examine whether it is possible to find a sustainable government constellation (...) that could provide support for the fiscal policy that Swedish voters voted for," he said.

Magdalena Anderson's bloc is burdened by differences in positions on a number of issues, from migration, where she advocates a more restrictive approach than some of her partners, to taxes on billionaires and the construction of new nuclear reactors, Reuters writes.

Its budgets may also struggle to get the support they need, given that the Left Party, formerly the Communist Party of Sweden, and the Center Party, which advocates free-market policies, have very different views on a number of economic issues.

The electoral success of the Sweden Democrats would be welcomed by all the more influential far-right parties in Europe, who were further encouraged by the victory of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the state elections in Germany last week.

The far right is hoping for gains in upcoming elections across Europe, with the National Rally's campaign for next year's presidential election in France potentially representing its biggest political gain.

While voting in Rinkeby, near Stockholm, on Saturday, longtime Sweden Democrats leader Jimi Åkesson said the suburb, home to one of the country's largest Swedish-Somali communities, "doesn't look like Sweden."

Sweden was long one of Europe's most welcoming countries to immigrants, until Kristersson came to power four years ago. His government abolished permanent residency for refugees, tightened rules on social rights and intensified deportations of people who had no right to stay in the country.

The Sweden Democrats acknowledge that neo-Nazis and white supremacists were partly involved in the founding of their party in the 1980s, but claim to have removed such extremists from their ranks and apologized for the party's past.

They stated that, if they enter the government, they would try to ban women from wearing clothing that covers their faces in public places and abolish funding for all projects related to the integration of newly arrived migrants.

According to the latest election results, however, the political group could see a decline in both the number of parliamentary seats and the percentage of votes won for the first time since Okeson became party leader more than two decades ago.

"You can't imagine how nervous I am right now. I feel like my life's work is being called into question. It's going to be extremely tight. We still have a chance," said Ludvig Aspling, MP and spokesman for the Sweden Democrats on immigration issues.