Stockholm: Sweden began a three-day wait on Monday to choose the winning side of its hard-line legislative elections, with the far right and the far right in a position to simultaneously seize power.
Due to repeated political crises in recent years, the Nordic country is in a phase of uncertainty when it comes to forming a government once again, with a majority that still looks too narrow.
After an evening of unbelievable results, the Scandinavian country’s electoral authority warned that a final decision on the ballot should wait until Wednesday, as scores are tight.
According to partial results covering about 95% of polling stations, the bloc led by Ulf Christerson, leader of the Moderates’ Conservative Party, will get an absolute majority of 175 to 176 seats, compared with 173 to 174 for the leftist bloc. Outgoing Social Democrat Prime Minister Magdalena Anderson.
If these numbers are confirmed, the Left will quit after eight years.
The big winner of the evening is the nationalist anti-immigration Sweden Democrats (SD) party led by Jimmy Axon. With a provisional score of 20.7%, it sets a new record and becomes the first right-wing party, but also the second party in Sweden.
“It smells great,” the 43-year-old party leader said, shaking his army at his campaign headquarters.
While exit polls and first preliminary results suggested a narrow victory for the Left at the start of the evening, as the count progressed and now on the road to victory, the Right continued to advance.
Based on the votes counted by midnight, the right-wing bloc (SD, Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals) would win 49.8% of the vote. The Left Bloc (Social Democrats, Left Party, Greens and Center Party) would gather 48.8%. That’s only 60,000 votes behind for an electorate of 7.8 million people.
The Swedes Abroad vote and some of the votes already cast are yet to be counted, but political scientists say the result is unlikely to be reversed.
“We will not have the final result tonight,” declared Prime Minister Magdalena Anderson, who did not throw in the towel for her party with a good score of over 30%.
major turning point
“Swedish democracy must do its job, all votes must be counted and we will wait for the result,” the 55-year-old current leader said.
These elections marked a major turning point: until these legislative elections the traditional Swedish authority was supposed to rule with the direct or indirect support of the SD.
Long a pariah, nationalist and anti-immigration party now finds itself in a position of power.
“It says a lot about how far we have come, about that little party that everyone laughed at (…) Today we are Sweden’s second largest party,” Axon told his warm supporters.
“Our ambition is to remain in government,” he reaffirmed, although it is more likely that the party will be satisfied with supporting a new majority in parliament.
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