Swedish parliamentary election: Social Democrats in the lead, tight race between camps

In Sweden, former Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson's Social Democrats are ahead in the parliamentary elections, according to projections by broadcaster SVT. However, a close race is emerging between the center-left camp around Andersson and the camp around the conservative head of government Ulf Kristersson.

Andersson's party received 28.0 percent of the vote. In the projection, a combination of post-election polls and counting results, Kristersson follows the Conservative Party with 19.9 percent of the vote.

Close race between both camps

It remains to be seen which political camp will ultimately be able to claim a majority of the 349 seats in the Swedish Riksdag. According to the projection, the parties that support Andersson as Prime Minister - in addition to the Social Democrats, the Left, the Greens and the liberal Center Party - have 175 seats. This would give them a slim majority of one seat.

Kristersson's previous coalition of three parties and the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats have a combined total of 174 seats.

Losses for right-wing populists

The Sweden Democrats are projected to get 17.7 percent and would therefore record losses compared to the 2022 election (20.54 percent). The right-wing populists had tolerated the minority government of Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals in Sweden for the past four years. Kristersson had announced that he would bring her into his cabinet if he won the election.

Migration and gang crime as an election campaign issue

Around eight million Swedes were asked to vote. Long before the election, the opposition was well ahead in polls. Shortly before the deadline, however, a closer race for power emerged than expected.

The election campaign focused, among other things, on the country's challenges in dealing with migration, gang crime and a tightening of criminal law - but also on the question of whether the right-wing populists in Sweden could become part of a government for the first time.

With information from Jana Sinram, ARD Studio Stockholm