Sweden’s election too close to call
Stockholm, SWEDEN—Sweden’s general election was too close to call early on Monday, as the incumbent prime minister and the left-wing opposition leader both said they were ready to govern and the far right was seen losing ground.
With more than 90 percent of votes counted, four opposition parties led by Social Democratic leader Magdalena Andersson, held a three-seat majority in the 349-seat parliament over Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s right-wing alliance, which includes the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats.
“For now, we are in the lead. And if that is confirmed, Sweden will have a new government,” 59-year-old Andersson, who was Sweden’s first woman prime minister in 2021 to 2022, told her supporters.
But her party—which ruled the Scandinavian country for most of the 20th century and remains Sweden’s largest—also looked to be heading for its worst score in over a century with 28 percent of the vote.
Outgoing prime minister Kristersson, whose Moderate Party was credited with 19.9 percent of the counted votes, meanwhile said that if the result stood, he would respect Andersson’s attempts to try to form a government with the three other parties on the left.
But he noted that the four had irreconcilable differences, primarily between the Left Party and the Center Party, and were unlikely to agree on a government program.
“I will therefore, even if tonight’s result stands, examine whether there are any possibilities within this nonsocialist parliamentary majority to find some workable government constellation,” Kristersson told his supporters.
“Which government is going to govern Sweden in the coming years is still an open question,” Kristersson declared.
In a big surprise, the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, which entered parliament in 2010, lost support for the first time, garnering 17.6 percent of the vote, down from 20.6 percent in 2022.
“We don’t yet have the full election result, but it’s obvious that we’ve lost a few percentage points compared with our result four years ago,” party leader Jimmie Akesson told an election night watch party.
